Drugs: Licensing

(asked on 17th November 2014) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will set targets and goals for speeding up the use of off-patent drugs outside their licensed indications, where evidence supports that use.


Answered by
George Freeman Portrait
George Freeman
This question was answered on 24th November 2014

We have no plans to set such targets or goals.

Off-patent drugs are those whose patent period has expired and they are widely used in the National Health Service now. Drugs can also be prescribed ‘off-label’ outside of their licensed indication(s) to individual patients where doctors consider it is clinically appropriate to do so. Prescribing decisions are rightly a matter for clinicians in discussion with their patients.

We are in the process of setting up a round-table discussion with key stakeholders, including NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to explore opportunities for supporting appropriate use of off-label drugs outside their licensed indications where the evidence supports this.

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