Campaigners lose Alzheimer's drugs bid
Friday, 10 Aug 2007 13:39
The high court decision could have forced Nice to reconsider its recommendation
Health campaigners have failed in their bid to overturn a decision to grant drugs to people with only certain stages of Alzheimer's disease.
But the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has been told that its guidance for the treatment of the disease is discriminatory and asked to produce a draft amendment.
The decision is the culmination of the first-ever judicial review of the Nice recommendations and follows a two-year campaign to give people with the early stages of the disease the drugs Aricept, Reminyl and Exelon.
Nice recommends that access to these drugs should only be provided to people in the moderate stage of the disease, but health campaigners believe giving patients the drugs earlier would bring numerous benefits.
At the high court today, five out of six challenges by campaigners and drug companies to Nice were dismissed, relating to the way the organisation determined how cost-effective the drugs were.
Campaigners have highlighted the one challenge that was successful, however, after the court ruled that Nice breached its duties under the Disability Discrimination Act and the Race Relations Act over its guidance.
Drug companies Eisai, the licence holder of Ariceptand, and Pfizer called the decision a "major victory for the many critics of the process by which Nice reaches its often seemingly clinically perverse decisions".
Dr Paul Hooper, Eisai's managing director, said: "This is great news for the many thousands of patients affected by Alzheimer's disease that would otherwise have been denied treatment based on Nice's original recommendations.
"We are particularly delighted that the voices of clinicians who actually treat patients have finally been heard.
"We remain disappointed that Nice has not been required to reveal details of the calculations used to determine the value of treatment in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease. We will continue to pursue access to these calculations through the courts and information commissioner's office."
Responding to the court decision, Nice itself said the ruling "strengthens [its position] by endorsing our approach to evaluating drugs".
"Our guidance stands and the drugs continue to be recommended only for people with moderate Alzheimer's disease, but the court has asked us to clarify our guidance when it is used for certain groups," chief executive Andrew Dillon said.
"It was always our intention that people with learning disabilities or people whose first language is not English should have equal access to the drugs in the moderate stage of Alzheimer's disease. We will reissue our guidance to the NHS to make this crystal clear."