Professor Paul Workman, Deputy Chief Executive of The Institute of Cancer Research, London, said: “The suggestion from NICE that it could remove its end of life criteria is extremely worrying and could deny thousands of patients with diseases such as cancer access to life-extending drugs.
“Approval of cancer drugs via end of life criteria is often the gateway to their use in the NHS earlier in the course of disease, with even greater benefit to patients, and is also a critical step in building up portfolios of new drugs that can be used in combination.
“It is disappointing that NICE has included nothing in its guidance to place greater stress on innovation when evaluating new drugs, and indeed removing end of life criteria could stifle innovation by erecting a major barrier to the approval of many innovative new cancer drugs. We encourage NICE to think again to find ways of improving access for cancer patients to new drugs and to stimulate innovation, which is essential to improve patient outcomes.”