Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to make (a) Nivolumab and (b) other immuno-oncology treatments for lung cancer available on the NHS.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is currently carrying out technology appraisals of nivolumab for two lung cancer indications:

(i) previously treated locally advanced or metastatic non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer. The expected publication date for this final guidance is September 2016.

(ii) Previously treated locally advanced or metastatic squamous non-small-cell lung cancer after prior chemotherapy in adults. The publication date for this final guidance is to be confirmed.

The NICE is also appraising pembrolizumab for treating advanced or recurrent PD-L1 positive non-small cell lung cancer after progression with platinum-based chemotherapy [ID840]. The expected publication date for the final guidance on this appraisal is January 2017.

Commissioners are legally required to fund drugs and treatments recommended in the NICE technology appraisal guidance within three months of its final guidance being issued. In the absence of guidance from the NICE, it is for commissioners to make decisions on whether to fund new medicines based on an assessment of the available evidence.