PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Drugs: Licensing (19 November 2015)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had with NICE on conducting health technology appraisals for off-patent drugs that have been proven to be effective in new indications.

Asked by:
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour)

My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State has had no discussions with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on the subject of technology appraisals for off-patent drugs in new indications. NICE does not routinely appraise drugs outside their licensed indications.

NICE does, however, issue evidence summaries which summarise the published evidence for selected unlicensed or off-label medicines that are considered to be of significance to the NHS, where there are no clinically appropriate licensed alternatives. They support decision-making on the use of an unlicensed or off-label medicine for an individual patient, where there are good clinical reasons for its use, usually when there is no licensed medicine for the condition requiring treatment, or the licensed medicine is not appropriate for that individual. Examples of evidence summaries can be found at:

http://www.nice.org.uk/advice?type=esuom

Answered by:
George Freeman (Conservative)
24 November 2015