Lane 3

NICE?

As part of Obama’s stimulus bill, it sounds like the US is going to get its version of the UK’s NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) or what I call the Department of Health Care Rationing.

In October 2007, a client who has offices in the UK called for help. A dear friend of his was suffering from breast cancer and had been told that the drug Lapatinib might offer her some hope (it goes by the trade name of Tykerb and is produced by GlaxoSmithKline). Unfortunately, England’s National Health System (NHS) would not cover the drug basically saying that the cancer needed to spread more before it would be appropriate for use.

To add insult to injury if the lady bought the drug herself then she would lose her national health care:

However, with another breast cancer drug Tykerb (Lapatinib) shortly to be licensed, a debate has arisen over the rights of patients to pay for their own treatment. The new drug would cost a patient about £25,000 a year, and anyone choosing to have it would have to pay for the rest of their treatment privately, as ‘topping up’ NHS treatment is not allowed.

In the end, I was unable to do much more than confirm that NICE isn’t. His friend wasn’t going to get the drug she needed.

Several months later I followed up with my client. Here is his reply: “Hey Angus, my friend got Lapatinb – good eh? Thanks for your encouragement. Eventually she got it through a foreign country. Anyway, here’s hoping.”

So, my friends, keep your passports up-to-date. Before long, you may need to sneak out of the country to get some meds…