NHS snubs new lung drug over cost

• Life-changing drug denied on the NHS over £104,000 a year cost - while Britain pays the EU £121 million every week.
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• Vote to leave the EU on 23 June.

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A drug hailed as a ‘breakthrough’ that could transform the lives of people suffering from the debilitating lung condition cystic fibrosis has been rejected as too costly by the NHS medicines watchdog, the Daily Mail reported last month.

The drug Orkambi has been shown to reduce infection and can cut the number of hospital admissions by more than 60% in those with the lung condition.

But in a decision condemned by MPs and charities, the medicines approval body the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has blocked provision of the drug on the NHS. 

Although NICE admits that Orkambi reduces a sudden worsening of symptoms requiring hospitalisation  and provides 'modest' benefits to lung function, they have said that, at £104,000 a year per patient, the drug isn’t cost-effective.  

Experts say that, while not a cure, Orkambi could allow many to lead near-normal lives without the need for a transplant. About 10,000 Britons have CF, of which 2,750 people in England have the genetic defect that Orkambi is designed to treat.

That this life-changing drug for people suffering cystic fibrosis has been blocked  for NHS use for the lack of £104,000 per patient a year - when we hand £121 million a week to the financially mismanaged EU - ought to be a huge scandal. The money needed is less than 10 minutes of the cash Britain must pay into the EU's budget as an EU member.

​We can change this - and give the NHS a chance to make a real difference to the lives of CF sufferers - by voting to leave the EU on 23 June.