§ Mr. GrayTo ask the Secretary of State for Health pending the National Institute for Clinical Excellence's appraisal of Glivec for chronic myeloid leukaemia patients, what guidance he has given health authorities on prescribing Glivec(a) to those who have been on Novartis' extended access programme, (b) to those who are on the current trial of the drug and (c) to those who have been diagnosed with CML recently and fall under neither (a) or (b). [17160]
§ Jacqui SmithA letter about the future provision of Glivec, agreed by Ministers and signed by both Neil McKay, the chief operating officer, and Professor Mike Richards, the national cancer director, was sent on 24 October to all national health service regional directors.
Novartis, the manufacturers of Glivec, are making a limited free supply available for those patients on the Extended Access Programme (EAP). It will then be for health authorities and trust to discuss the funding of the treatment. However, as the letter of 24 October makes clear, there is no question of treatment being withdrawn from patients on funding grounds once EAP supplies end. Treatment should cease only on clinical grounds.
Those patients involved in trials of Glivec will continue to have their treatments funded by Novartis.
For new patients, as with all newly licensed treatments in advance of a NICE appraisal, the Department's advice is that funding authorities should consider the clinical evidence available for a specific treatment before making any decision.
It is expected that the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) will publish guidance on Glivec in August 2002.