NHS cancer patients wait 14 years for new drugs - 18 months longer than in 2008

Cancer drug development has slowed by 18 months due to EU red tape leaving patients waiting 14 years for new treatment, a damning new report has warned.

The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) found that excessive inspections, and needless safety reporting when testing already licensed drugs in different cancer types, has increased admin and made it far more expensive to run clinical trials.

It means that NHS patients are now waiting 14.1 years rather than 12.7 years in 2008, for drugs to be available, even though Nice has speeded up approval in that period by seven months.

The average time taken between the start of phase I clinical trials of a drug and authorisation by the European Medical Agency (EMA) has increased by over a year from 7.8 years in 2000-08 to 9.1 years in 2009-16 – suggesting most delays are occurring during trials and licensing.

The regulation of clinical trials is governed by the EU Clinical Trials Directive, which many healthcare experts say have made trials far more expensive and bureaucratic.

Professor Paul Workman, Chief Executive of ICR, London, said: “We are concerned about the length of time it’s taking for new drugs to reach cancer patients. It’s actually getting slower.

“The delays are in the stage of taking drugs through clinical trials, and the licensing process itself, through bureaucracy

“We need to address the regulatory barriers in setting up and running clinical trials, and in getting drugs licensed at as early a stage as possible.”

The report also found that some cancers including brain, womb, bladder, oesophageal, and testicular,  had seen no new drugs at all since 2000 even though they are among the most deadly with the fewest treatments.

And only eight of the 97 drugs authorised by the EMA were licensed for use in children’s cancer.

Dr Olivia Rossanese, Head of Therapeutics Biology at ICR, said: “We have seen far less progress against many other tumour types, and much less progress in children than in adults.

“Our report clearly shows that drugs are taking longer to reach patients when we would expect the process to be getting quicker.”  

The report authors also warned that Nice was failing to appreciate the importance of innovative drugs which fight cancer in new ways.

Cancer continually evolves and without new mechanisms for battling disease, individuals could discover there are no treatments left, if all the drugs work in the same way.

And there is concern that Nice has still not finished appraising drugs which were available through the now defunct Cancer Drugs Fund.

At the time of the analysis 51 treatments for different cancers had not been evaluated for use on the NHS, meaning many people could be missing out on important medications.

Dr Iain Foulkes, Cancer Research UK’s executive director of research and innovation, said: “There’s still much more to do, especially for cancers that are hard to treat, including oesophageal cancer and brain tumours, which haven’t seen much improvement in the number of patients surviving over this time.

“Cancer Research UK’s priority is to boost funding for research into these cancer types and we hope that the levels of innovation and progress we’re seeing in the lab will translate into new ways to tackle the disease.”