Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government in how many cases of Membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis kidney disease the use of the drug Eculizumab has been identified as the only viable treatment; in how many cases its use has been refused; and what assessment they have made of the circumstances of the appeal by 15 year-old Lewis Brimble against such a refusal.
NHS England has advised that, to date, it has received three individual funding requests for eculizumab (Soliris) to treat membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis or dense deposit disease. All three requests were declined.
Neither the Department nor NHS England can comment on individual cases.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published a rapid evidence summary on prevention of recurrence of C3 glomerulopathy post-transplant: eculizumab on 26 June 2015. This is available at the following link and a copy is attached:
www.nice.org.uk/advice/esuom44/chapter/Key-points-from-the-evidence