England is 'one of the worst places to get cancer': Patients can't get NHS access to key medicines available in other countries, drugs firm chief says

  • Patients are being denied access to key medicines available in other countries,
  • Critics have blamed the methods used by the NHS rationing watchdog NICE
  • They say it is leading to patients needlessly suffering early deaths

England is one of the worst places in Europe to get cancer, the boss of a major drugs company has warned.

Cancer patients are being denied NHS access to key medicines that are available in other countries, Ben Hickey said.

The UK general manager of Bristol-Myers Squibb blamed archaic and inflexible methods used by rationing watchdog NICE. And he claimed patients are needlessly suffering early deaths as a result.

England has survival rates 10 per cent lower than a group of our European neighbours

England has survival rates 10 per cent lower than a group of our European neighbours

Mr Hickey warned that the gulf in cancer survival between England and other European countries is set to grow thanks to new rationing rules. ‘Unfortunately it really is not a good place to be diagnosed with what is a devastating illness,’ he told the Daily Mail.

‘We have seen that from the adoption of innovative therapies, we have seen it in survival rates 10 per cent lower than a group of our European neighbours, we have seen it in the five-year survival in lung cancer being almost half what it is in Austria.’

He said the situation is likely to get worse because the NHS this month introduced the ability to delay the introduction by up to three years of any drug which would cost the health system more than £20million a year. Survival rates for some cancers in Britain lag up to ten years behind those in the best Western European countries.

This is usually put down to late diagnosis, but a 2015 report by health researchers the IMS Institute showed the NHS in England spends less on new cancer treatments per patient than Scotland, Sweden, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the US.

Bristol Myers-Squibb has been in negotiations with NICE about its breakthrough lung cancer medicine, nivolumab. It is one of a new wave of immunotherapy treatments which teach the body’s immune system to attack tumours. In trials it was roughly 16 times more effective than chemotherapy for long-term treatment of advanced lung cancer.

Cancer survival rates in  the UK are more than ten years behind other European countries

Cancer survival rates in  the UK are more than ten years behind other European countries

While 40,000 patients in other European countries including Scotland have been given the drug, NICE argues its £68,000 a year cost is too high, even with the confidential discount offered by the company.

Mr Hickey insisted nivolumab is cost effective and said he was hopeful NICE would change its mind. It is due to make a final decision on nivolumab for lung cancer in the coming weeks. He said the reason survival rates in England lag behind other nations is because NHS health officials view medicines as an expensive burden.

He added: ‘We are still using an archaic model which is based on chemotherapy to evaluate innovative medicines such as immunotherapy. The flexibility doesn’t exist.’

Sir Andrew Dillon, chief executive of NICE, defended its methods and said companies have to price their drugs responsibly. He said it had recommended nivolumab for skin and kidney cancer, but there were uncertainties around its benefits in lung cancer.

NHS England said NHS cancer survival rates are at a record high. 

Cancer survival rates are falling behind as well 

 Cancer survival rates in Britain lag more than ten years behind those in many other European countries.

Even for breast cancer – one of the most treatable forms of the disease – the figures are still well below those reached by France, Sweden and Italy in the late 1990s.

For lung cancer, the rates are so far behind that patients in England and Wales are only just over half as likely to survive as those in some parts of Europe, with 10 per cent surviving five years here compared to 18 per cent in Austria.

In 2013 research in the Lancet showed that the UK’s survival rates were worse than the European average for most cancers, and worse for some types than Estonia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Slovenia.

Other research suggests that if the UK caught up with the European average, an estimated 10,000 lives would be saved a year.

Macmillan Cancer Support has described the situation as ‘shameful’ and warns too many patients are dying needlessly here when they would survive had they been treated elsewhere in Europe.

The problem is usually put down to late diagnosis.

But research in 2015 found the NHS in England was also spending far less than other wealthy nations on cancer.

England spends only £7,671 per new cancer patient, compared to £16,661 in the US, the IMS Institute report found.

Out of 10 countries - England, Scotland, Sweden, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, the US, Italy and Spain - England spends the least, it found.