Lord Freyberg – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Freyberg on 2016-07-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to consider providing interim funding for innovative treatments for patients with radioactive-iodine refractory differentiated thyroid cancer where there are treatments available but they are yet to be reviewed by NICE.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) already provides access to sorafenib as a treatment option for the systemic therapy of locally advanced or metastatic differentiated radioiodine-refractory thyroid cancer.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has been asked to develop technology appraisal guidance on the use of sorafenib and lenvatinib for this indication.

NHS England published its new standard operating procedure for the CDF in July 2016 and a copy is attached.

NHS England has advised that it considered carefully the issue as to which drugs should be given interim funding and concluded, with the support of the majority of stakeholders, that interim funding should only be possible for those drugs that had been granted a marketing authorisation and were in receipt of a draft positive appraisal recommendation or a draft recommendation for use within the CDF from NICE.