227938 - Prostate Cancer: Drugs (Answered)

Mrs Anne Main
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the impact on prostate cancer patients of the delisting of the drug cabazitaxel by the Cancer Drugs Fund; what steps NHS England plans to take to maintain access to cabazitaxel for prostate cancer patients until it has been subject to review by NICE; and what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Individual Funding Request process for cancer drugs.

George Freeman

NHS England has advised that cabazutaxel (Jevtana) was removed from the national Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) list on 12 March 2015 as the CDF clinical panel concluded that the clinical benefits of cabazitaxel in patients with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer, who had received prior treatment with docetaxel, were insufficient for it to merit retention on the national list. The full decision summary is available at:

www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/ncdf-summ-cabaztxl-post-doctxl.pdf

Patients currently receiving cabazitaxel through the Fund will remain on that treatment until such a time when they are no longer receiving benefit from the treatment. Clinicians will still be able to apply for individual patients to receive cabazitaxel on an exceptional basis.

NHS England follows a standard operating procedure when responding to individual requests to fund cancer treatments. This requires a response to the request within 10 working days following a receipt of a complete submission from the clinician. Further details are available at:

www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/pe/cdf/