Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why some drugs which have not been appraised by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) were made available through the Cancer Drugs Fund when that Fund was set up to provide access to drugs deemed not to be cost-effective by NICE; and what drugs are now being withdrawn without having been subject to a cost-effectiveness evaluation by NICE.

We have always been clear that the Cancer Drugs Fund should be used to fund drug/indication combinations:

- appraised by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and not recommended on the basis of cost effectiveness, or where the recommendations materially restrict access to a smaller group of patients than the specifications set out in the marketing authorisation (an ‘optimised’ recommendation); and

- on which NICE has not, or not yet, issued appraisal guidance.

NHS England has informed us that there are 10 drug and indication combinations due to be removed from the Cancer Drugs Fund on 12 March 2015 on which NICE has not published technology appraisal guidance. These are:

- bendamustine for the treatment of rituximab refractory low grade lymphoma;

- bortezomib for the treatment of relapsed/refractory mantle cell lymphoma;

- bortezomib for the treatment of relapsed multiple myeloma;

- bortezomib for the treatment of relapsed Waldenstrom's Macroglobulinaemia;

- everolimus for the treatment of well differentiated pancreatic neuroendocrine carcinomas;

- lapatinib for the treatment of advanced breast cancer;

- pazopanib for the treatment of advanced non-adipocytic soft tissue sarcoma;

- pegylated liposomal doxorubicin for the treatment of angiosarcoma;

- pegylated liposomal doxorubicin for the treatment of sarcoma of the heart and great vessels; and

- regorafenib for the treatment of adult patients with advanced gastro-intestinal stromal tumours after failure of at least previous imatinib and sunitinib.