Posted on 06/15/2012 1:41:25 AM PDT by markomalley
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has issued draft guidance turning down the drug on the grounds that it is too expensive and the long-term benefits of it are not clear.
The drug named Zelboraf, or vemurafenib, is for malignant melanoma that has spread and carries a specific genetic mutation and costs around £1,750 per patient per week.
The makers Roche agreed an undisclosed discount for the NHS but Nice still felt it was not cost effective.
Sir Andrew Dillon, chief executive of Nice said: “We need to be sure that new treatments provide sufficient benefits to patients to justify the significant cost the NHS is being asked to pay. Vemurafenib is an expensive drug and its long term benefits are difficult to quantify."
It is thought the drug may extend life from around 9.6 months to more than 13 months, a spokesman for Roche said.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
What’s even worse is these drugs will not be developed for lack of a return on investment.
The British system has a unique feature...if you are terminal in just about any fashion....even if the end is eighteen months away....other than pain medication, you won’t get nothing else.
It’s the same way if you weight over 300 pounds and need a knee replacement...you won’t get it until you usually get down to 200 pounds. With a bad knee, there’s virtually no way that you can lose weight...so you just get pain-killers until the day you pass away.
It might take twenty years, but if Obamacare stays intact....we will all be inviting regulations to dominate our health in the end. You may one day have to buy a ticket to Costa Rica....just to get the care that you think you deserve.
“If SCOTUS lets Obamacare remain intact...or if the RINO Congress tries to recraft an Obamacare-lite version, we will see this happen all too often here, as well.”
I’m not sure I see the problem. Just because the NHS doesn’t think the drug is worth the money doesn’t mean people can’t put their hand in their pocket and buy it for themselves if they disagree. The NHS doesn’t ban people from private healthcare providers or paying for it yourself.
Is that the intention of Obamacare - to replace all private healthcare and ban people from buying drugs and treatment themselves making Obamacare a mandatory monopoly? If it is I can see why people are so concerned, but that’s not how the NHS operates.
So if NICE strictly deals with what will and will not be covered by NHS and not what can and cannot be marketed, what is the agency that deals with what drugs can and cannot be marketed in the UK? (Your equivalent to the FDA)
This is exactly what American medicine needs - more bureaucracy.
Have you seen this?: “As scientists operating a small business, one of the biggest challenges they face is regulatory uncertainty, Vikram said. “Large companies have the manpower and bandwidth to keep an eye on changing governmental regulations. Smaller businesses don’t.”
It’s from here: Insera Therapeutics Slide 5 http://www.livescience.com/13210-science-business-success-nsf.html
Reality is all over, but liberals don’t want to see it.
Hey somebody tell that jerk that own’s Virgin Airlines that was raving about the British Helathcare system..forgot his name right now.
Yet the same government that is responsible for the NHS is more than perfectly willing to put up a Zambian brood mare and her family in a 2 million pound townhome, virtually rent free. Equality? I'd say it's quite a bit more than equality.
“So if NICE strictly deals with what will and will not be covered by NHS and not what can and cannot be marketed, what is the agency that deals with what drugs can and cannot be marketed in the UK? (Your equivalent to the FDA)”
NICE only provides guidelines for the NHS use of medicines, the UK drug licencing authority is the MHRA:
“”What’s even worse is these drugs will not be developed for lack of a return on investment.”
Very true.
“Yet the same government that is responsible for the NHS is more than perfectly willing to put up a Zambian brood mare and her family in a 2 million pound townhome, virtually rent free. Equality? I’d say it’s quite a bit more than equality.”
Housing is handled entirely by local councils, not by central government. In order to stop left-wing councils doing precisely what you describe, in April 2011 a tight cap was placed on housing benefit which effectively stopped what you describe:
ObamaCARE/RomneyCARE does not impact Moslems
and Congress.
Very fair, is it not?
It is called ROMNEYCARE because it was instituted,
like gay marriage, BY MR. WILLARD MARRIOT ROMNEY(CARE).
Richard Branson.Yes,I'll wager that he hasn't gone anywhere near an NHS doctor or hospital since he made his first million.Somehow I see him visiting only the most expensive doctors and hospitals in London,Boston,New York,Baltimore,Rochester,Minnesota....
“What’s even worse is these drugs will not be developed for lack of a return on investment.”
Pay cash if you want it. Problem solved.
My wife died of malignant melanoma. This is a crime against humanity. Period.
“If SCOTUS lets Obamacare remain intact...or if the RINO Congress tries to recraft an Obamacare-lite version, we will see this happen all too often here, as well. “
You will see this in any system that is not the customer paying directly for something they want.
There is an upper limit to what socialist systems will pay. People in the US aren’t used to socialism having limits because there were no limits to what we were willing to borrow. That is changing.
NHS = Medicare = Obamacare = Socialism
They are all the same in that they force people to give their property to someone else.
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