The Court of Appeal in the UK has ruled that Swindon Primary Care Trust cannot cherry-pick its Herceptin (Trastuzumab) users. Herceptin is an experimental breast cancer drug marketed by Roche. Every NHS trust in England and Wales is likely to be affected by this ruling.

The appeal court judges decided that trusts cannot decide that one patient can have Herceptin while another, Ann Maria Rogers (who has an aggressive form of breast cancer) cannot, just because of exceptional circumstances.

A specialist who was treating Ann Marie Rogers prescribed Herceptin for her, but Swindon Primary Care Trust decided there were no exceptional circumstances to justify giving Herceptin to her. Mr. Rogers tried to pay for the treatment herself, but could not. So she took the trust to court, saying the trust had effectively decided that her life should not be saved.

The Herceptin treatment is still in its experimental stage and has not yet been approved by the EMEA (European Medicines Agency) as a treatment for early stage breast cancer. NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence, UK) has not recognised it yet either.

The annual cost of Herceptin treatment is ?30,000. If a drug is licensed, a Health Trust in the UK has to pay for that treatment.

Swindon Primary Care Trust says it will pay for Ms. Rogers’ treatment while it is reviewing its policy on unlicensed drugs that show promise.

Ironically, if the Trust had decided to cover nobody for Herceptin or any other unlicensed drug from the start, it would never have been taken to court.

Ms. Rogers cried when she heard the ruling. She was standing outside the court when the ruling was announced that the Trust had acted irrationally. Ms. Rogers said she could not have hoped for a better verdict. She added that she had done this for all women battling with breast cancer. She is now confident she can fight the disease and make a full recovery.

Twenty women in Swindon should be happy with this news as they have also been refused treatment. There may be several hundred throughout the UK.

Information on Herceptin PIL from Roche UK (PDF)
Information on Herceptin SPC from Roche UK (PDF)

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today