Professor Jonathan Waxman, of Imperial College London, an expert in prostate cancer who founded the Prostate Cancer Charity in England and helped garner support for cancer treatment, has denounced the refusal of the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to approve the 2 new and expensive prostate cancer drugs approved last year in the United States, saying that NICE "has overregulated and proscribed drugs that offer real advances to people with cancer." He charges that NICE has blocked the approval of several new cancer drugs because of the agency's faulty assessment of cost-effectiveness of cancer therapies.
Prof Waxman said the way NICE evaluates cost is wrong. He told the BBC, "I would argue that they [the 2 prostate drugs] have been disallowed—banned—by NICE on the basis of assessment which is not a true financial costing of the worth of the drugs." He warned that drug companies may soon stop seeking approval for their medications in the United Kingdom, which will be a disaster for patients. Agreeing with Prof Waxman, GlaxoSmithKline's Chief Executive Officer Sir Andrew Witty said that delaying approval of innovative new drugs was "a false economy," suggesting that "the drug bill is only 8% to 10% of the total healthcare bill, and what is being lost in this stampede for cost cuts is any kind of strategic thoughtfulness." BBC Radio 4; February 25, 2012.
