Anti-TNF Drugs

Debate between Fabian Hamilton and Andrew Smith

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Fabian Hamilton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He is right. The more studies carried out across the country at university level, the better it will be for patients suffering from refractory uveitis.

The anti-TNF drugs switch off the molecule that creates the inflammation in the first place and are therefore far more effective than corticosteroids in cases such as Samara’s. I am sure that Queen’s University Belfast and many others can confirm that.

Last year, Samara married her fiancé, Ben, and the couple now want to start a family. However, it is not at all advisable for her to become pregnant while taking mycophenolate, because it may well cause a miscarriage or birth defects. An anti-TNF drug could allow her to retain her eyesight and probably to conceive safely and be able to see her child grow up.

Let me move on to why adalimumab or infliximab should be available immediately on NHS prescription for adults with sight-threatening uveitis. I am aware that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is about to conduct a multiple-technology appraisal of adalimumab and infliximab and that responses to the draft must be received by 16 December—this time next week. From my conversations with Teifi James, one of the country’s leading eye surgeons, and from my research into that treatment it would seem that drugs such as Humira are highly effective in the treatment of uveitis, so much so that researchers in the Sycamore trial in Bristol, to which the Minister referred in his letter to me of 4 November, have stopped recruiting to it because the children being treated are doing so well on the drug. However, NHS England did not take that into account when it made its most recent decision on the use of adalimumab and infliximab for the treatment of adult uveitis alone.

According to Mr James, approximately 120 patients with sight-threatening uveitis are waiting for anti-TNF treatments in England, whereas patients in Scotland currently have access to adalimumab and infliximab. Treatment using Humira costs just under £10,000 a year per patient, which means that approval of the use of this drug for treating refractory uveitis alone would cost no more than £1.2 million a year.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I commend the argument that my hon. Friend is making on behalf of his constituents. I too have been contacted by a constituent about this issue, who points to the excellent work being done by the Olivia’s Vision charity, which my hon. Friend may have heard of. My constituent says:

“My daughter currently suffers from Uveitis and is receiving Infliximab to treat the condition, so far successfully. I would like to live in the hope that this would be available to her in the future should her conditions change, and indeed others to whom this could be a sight saving drug.”

Is it not important that patients such as my constituent’s daughter have that assurance?

[Fabian Hamilton]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. In fact, the Olivia’s Vision charity has been in touch with me and offered its full support for this debate and any future effects of it, which will hopefully include a decision from the Government that both infliximab and adalimumab will be available on the NHS. Those anti-TNF drugs are clearly completely effective in the treatment of refractory uveitis alone. I will talk a bit about the effects of anti-TNF drugs on other conditions.