Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the use of (a) the drug Orkambi and (b) other new medicines for long-term conditions on (i) the budget of the NHS and (ii) resources available for hospital inpatients.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body that provides guidance on the prevention and treatment of ill health and the promotion of good health and social care. Through its technology appraisal programme, NICE provides authoritative, evidence-based guidance for the National Health Service on whether drugs and other treatments represent a clinically and cost effective use of resources. NHS organisations are legally required to make funding available for drugs and treatments recommended in NICE technology appraisal guidance.

NICE has recommended a number of drugs for the treatment of long-term conditions and has published resource impact tools alongside its recommendations to aid NHS organisations in assessing the expected impact of NICE’s recommendations. NICE published technology appraisal guidance in July 2016 that does not recommend Orkambi as a clinically and cost effective use of NHS resources

There has been a constructive dialogue between the company, NHS England and NICE, including discussion hosted through NICE’s confidential ‘Office for Market Access’, although NICE is yet to receive any fresh proposals from Vertex, the company that manufactures Orkambi. Both NHS England and NICE have been consistent in advice to Vertex, that progress can only be made by working through NICE’s appraisal processes and the existing commercial framework.