PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Leukaemia: Drugs (16 November 2015)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the availability of medicines which treat patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia who are resistant or intolerant to tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapies.

Asked by:
Sir Nicholas Dakin (Labour)

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has issued technology appraisal guidance on a number of tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapies as possible treatment options for patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia.

NICE has recommended imatinib (Gleevec) and nilotinib (Tasigna) as first-line treatments for some patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia and nilotinib for some patients who are intolerant or resistant to imatinib. NICE has not been able to recommend dasatinib (Sprycel) and bosutinib (Bosulif) for use on the National Health Service. Further information about NICE’s guidance on chronic myeloid leukaemia is available at:

www.nice.org.uk/guidance/conditions-and-diseases/cancer/blood-and-bone-marrow-cancers

Commissioners are legally required to fund drugs and treatments recommended in NICE technology appraisal guidance within three months of its final guidance being issued. In the absence of guidance from NICE, it is for commissioners to make decisions on whether to fund medicines based on an assessment of the available evidence.

Dasatinib and bosutinib are available as second-line treatment options for some patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia through the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF). A further drug, ponatinib, is available through the CDF as a possible first-line treatment option for some patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia.

Answered by:
George Freeman (Conservative)
19 November 2015