According to recent articles in the media, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) will shortly issue a recommendation that abiraterone is covered for routine use in the UK among men with chemotherapy-refractory, metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).
If one believes the media reports (see The Daily Mail yesterday and The Daily Telegraph today), one might either get the impression that this was largely “a victory for” the staff of The Daily Mail, or that it was largely due to a patient advocacy campaign. However, The “New” Prostate Cancer InfoLink suspects that the manufacturer may also have been willing to “budge” a little on the price, and lower the cost of care for patients being given the drug. (Please note that the earlier, draft recommendation from NICE not to approve routine use of abiraterone was significantly about that price factor; there have been major differences of opinion about the way the analysis of cost per patient per year was carried out.)
Regardless of the details, it would be great to see abiraterone available on a routine basis to appropriate patients in the UK, so The “New” Prostate Cancer InfoLink looks forward to such a development — perhaps even later this week.
Filed under: Living with Prostate Cancer, Management, Treatment | Tagged: abiraterone, NICE, UK |
THE "NEW" PROSTATE CANCER INFOLINK 
I think you’ll find this is England and Wales only, not Scotland nor Northern Ireland.
Richard:
I understand that, but I think you will also find that what NICE recommends, all the regions tend to follow reasonably closely. Indeed, see, for example, this in the Scottish media, which actually implies that Janssen-Cilag has been involved in this reassessment process..