First immunotherapy EAMS for most common type of lung cancer brings UK patients access to life-extending medicine

MHRA grants UK lung cancer patients access to BMS's nivolumab.

“Thanks to our Early Access to Medicines Scheme, NHS patients with this devastating form of lung cancer will be amongst the first in Europe to have access to this life‐enhancing medicine,” commented Life Sciences Minister, George Freeman MP. “This scheme, launched in 2014, is making a real difference in speeding up access to innovative medicines, but we want to go further, which is why the independent Accelerated Access Review will recommend how we can get new treatments to patients even faster.”

NSCLC is the most common type of lung cancer in the UK and is further divided into squamous and non-squamous types based on the cells that it originates from.

“Nivolumab is one of the biggest advances in this field in almost two decades and it is changing survival expectations in lung cancer. I am delighted that the MHRA has made nivolumab available to some non-squamous lung cancer patients expressing PD-L1 through EAMS. It is untenable however that the door remains closed for other patients, such as those with squamous NSCLC who must continue to wait for a NICE review. I hope that nivolumab can soon be made available to all patients who could potentially benefit from it,” said Professor Dean Fennell, Chair of Thoracic Medical Oncology, University of Leicester.

Nivolumab is a PD-1 (programmed death-1) immune checkpoint inhibitor that works by harnessing the ability of the immune system to fight cancer.

Johanna Mercier, General Manager, Bristol-Myers Squibb UK & Ireland said: “It is great that we are now able to make nivolumab available to some non-squamous lung cancer patients through EAMS but it is also critical that we continue to work with the reimbursement authorities to open up access for patients with squamous lung cancer. NICE will make its final recommendation for squamous patients later this month and we acknowledge that longer-term change to the medicines review process is underway, although the timing of implementation and the measures of success for this are not clear. In the UK, many patients cannot afford to wait for these reforms.”