The new Labour government has set out a welcome and ambitious mission to deliver better healthcare in Britain, with patient access to innovative medical treatments a key goal. Important challenges, such as how to increase the number of clinical trials and streamline regulatory approvals for medicines, have rightly been singled out as top priorities for supporting this. However, if Labour wants to be quick out of the starting blocks in ensuring UK patients are at the front of the queue for new medicines, the fundamental question of how we value medicines must be addressed head on.
Our scientific understanding of the human body is constantly evolving. And with that, we have advanced our ability to solve some of the most pressing challenges in the treatment of diseases. The resulting innovation is creating new treatments for life-threatening and limiting conditions, which have the potential to change lives.
Patients around the world are benefitting from these leaps forward in care and treatment, and it should be no different here at home. Yet in England access to new medicines often falls at the final hurdle, when the treatment is assessed for its cost-effectiveness for use on the NHS. England recently ranked ninth in Europe for availability of medicines, falling from seventh the previous year. For cancer medicines, England trails behind in thirteenth place. The implications are clear: patients in England have fewer treatment options than their European counterparts. Now that Labour has the keys to Number Ten, it has the power to close the gap and put more innovation into the hands of patients.
One pressing problem is patient access to “multi-indication medicines”. Advances in life sciences research and development have led to the discovery of medicines that can treat several different diseases. These are not niche treatments – according to research by Sanofi, over half of submissions for a cost-effectiveness assessment between July 2016 and August 2023 were for multi-indication medicines.*
Immunotherapies, which to date have shown significant promise in treating cancers, are a prime example of a class of medicine that has the potential to act across a number of different conditions. They harness the immune system to recognise and attack disease carrying cells. This enables immunotherapies to work across a range of diseases, meaning they are well placed to act as multi-indication medicines.
Despite this promise, an increasing number of multi-indication medicines are simply not being made available to English patients. The issue is rooted in an outdated technicality which the Labour government could unpick.
The medicines assessment system, which judges cost-effectiveness for NHS use, is designed for an era in which one medicine was developed for one disease, with one price. But in the era of multi-indication medicines, this approach is a blunt instrument. A single price for a multi-indication medicine ignores the differing levels of benefit it provides as a treatment across a range of conditions. This means that medicines that might otherwise have been judged “cost-effective” are not being made available on the NHS, denying NHS patient access.
This is more than a technical issue. It has a real-life impact on the patients who need treatments the most. An analysis of medicines appraisals, conducted by Sanofi, which were terminated early found that 37,400 patients were prevented from accessing new multi-indication medicines between July 2016 and August 2023.*
While science is creating more treatment options for patients, too often these are falling at the final hurdle. Now that the baton has been passed to Labour, the time is right to make the vital changes needed. These changes must be made as part of updates across the entire medicines life cycle, from research, development and trialling through to regulatory approval. Long-term, proactive and ambitious reform is vital.
This doesn’t need to be a solo mission – the whole healthcare ecosystem, from patients, to clinicians, to life sciences companies, is actively willing to cooperate to find a solution. Together we can ensure the system is fit for the future, and that UK patients are always among the first in the world to benefit from exciting innovations in medicine.
*Research produced by Sanofi in October 2023
MAT-XU-2402871 (v1.0) July 2024
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