Medical Treatments: Innovation — Written Question

Question

Iqbal Mohamed

Independent — Dewsbury and Batley

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the review of the early access to medicines system will include Early Access Programmes of the type used for Givinostat; and what steps he is taking to (a) help tackle geographic variations in uptake and (b) improve equitable access to innovative treatments across the NHS.

Answer

Ashley Dalton

The UK Rare Diseases Framework sets out improving access to specialist care, treatments, and drugs as a priority, and health equity as a cross-cutting theme. The Department understands the importance of rapid patient access to new medicines for patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy and has worked with NHS England to consider the issues raised by the Givinostat early access programme.

We are also working to review the effectiveness of access schemes for rare disease therapies. This will focus on the Early Access to Medicines Scheme, the Innovative Licensing and Access Pathway, and the Innovative Medicines Fund, but will broadly consider access to rare disease therapies.