MDS UK Patient Support Group

Only 200 patients helped by £50m fund for extra cancer drugs

Latest update on how the Interim Cancer Drug Fund will be implemented at your local Strategic Health Authority level.

Read NICE’s press release, as well as a further article in PharmaTimes

NICE to lose powers to decide on new drugs.

London, 26 July 2010 – The MDS UK Patient Support Group has welcomed the decision announced today by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) that it will re-appraise the use of Vidaza (azacitidine) in patients with higher-risk myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS)- a group of debilitating bone marrow diseases. Today’s decision by a NICE [...]

‘Cancer experts from more than 30 hospitals across Europe have joined a campaign to get an expensive life-extending drug on the NHS’, writes Daily Telegraph’s medical correspondent Kate Devlin.

On 4th March 2010, NICE published their final decision not to recommend the use of azacitidine (Vidaza) to treat patients with MDS in the NHS, despite its proven ability to extend patient survival and significantly improve quality of life…

The MDS UK Patient Support Group today expressed its anger and disappointment at the announcement by the Scottish Medicines Consortium that is not recommending Vidaza (azacitidine) be made available through NHS Scotland to patients with a range of life-threatening bone marrow diseases.

The next Government has the power to invest in the future of cancer care. We need every parliamentary candidate to make a firm commitment to cancer support, and you can make this happen.

Prime minister’s office responds to the AML (Acute Myeloid Leukaemia) petition for azacitidine