It has been a bad month for patients battling with the authorities to win access to new drugs.
In the UK, people with mild Alzheimer鈥檚 disease lost a High Court bid to win access to donepezil (marketed as Aricept), a drug that delays the onset of symptoms by increasing the availability of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. And in the US, the , which represents people with cancer, lost its battle to obtain and use experimental anti-cancer drugs before they have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The UK had teamed up with Eisai, which sells donepezil, to challenge guidelines on the use of the drug by the UK鈥檚 (NICE) 鈥� which advises the National Health Service (NHS) on whether drugs offer value for money.
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The High Court verdict on 10 August upheld NICE鈥檚 original advice that the NHS shouldn鈥檛 prescribe donepezil for people with early-stage Alzheimer鈥檚. 鈥淧eople in the early stages of the disease will still be refused drugs because NICE considers that these people are not worth 拢2.50 per day,鈥� says Neil Hunt, chief executive of the Alzheimer鈥檚 Society. 鈥淧eople will be forced to deteriorate before they get the treatment they need.鈥�
In the US, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled on 7 August by 8 to 2 that patients don鈥檛 have a constitutional right to use unapproved anti-cancer medicines still going through clinical trials. Frank Burroughs of the Abigail Alliance, which launched its case against the FDA in 2003, says he will now take the case to the Supreme Court.
