ICYMI: We brought the sector together to create a nine-point plan looking at practical recommendations to improve access to new cancer treatments.

Here is a summary of our plan, developed with 16 leading experts across the life sciences sector

#DrugAccess

Tying drug prices to payoffs.

We support exploring ways to tie a drug’s price more closely to the outcomes it delivers for patients to ensure the NHS gets value for money and patients get access to the newest and most innovative treatments.

Varying pricing for different conditions.

Being able to vary a drug’s unit price or apply discounts across different conditions could encourage companies to bring drugs to market for new conditions, increasing access to treatments in areas of unmet need.

Better data collection for new pricing models.

The NHS lacks the infrastructure to collect the data needed to support new models of drug pricing. We recommend that the Government and pharmaceutical industry work together to expand this infrastructure.

Allowing companies to collaborate on combinations.

We strongly urge the Competition and Marketing Authority to issue guidance to make it easier for companies to collaborate on potentially life-saving new combination treatments.

Providing tests and treatments in tandem.

We call for a clearer route for diagnostic tests to reach the NHS alongside new treatments, by adding new tests to the directory as drugs are approved, to open up faster access to the latest biomarker tests.

Finding faster ways to assess drugs in trials.

The public and private sectors should collaborate to investigate ‘surrogate’ measures for predicting survival benefit, as waiting for clinical trials to show an overall survival benefit can cause unacceptable delays for patients.

Real recognition for true innovation.

A drug’s degree of innovation in its mechanism should be properly considered when evaluating new treatments for use on the NHS to give patients access to innovative new treatments that attack cancer in brand new ways.

Stepping up development for cancers of high unmet need.

We call for greater cooperation between the public and private sectors in the discovery and development of drugs for cancers of particularly high unmet need.

Forming an information portal to guide innovative drug discovery.

We support efforts to develop an online portal for the health innovation ecosystem to provide access to a wide range of information for those working in the life-science sector.