BRITAIN is one of the slowest countries in Europe to adopt new cancer drugs, according to a report published yesterday.

This is even though the UK spends more per head on cancer research than any other of the 19 countries surveyed.

A team at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and the Stockholm School of Economics has shown that some patients get access to new drugs much more quickly than others. The leaders are Austria, Spain and Switzerland, while the UK lags behind, with the Czech Republic, Hungary, Norway and Poland.

The report, funded by the pharmaceutical company Hoffman-LaRoche, was published yesterday at the European Parliament in Brussels. Nils Wilking, of the Karolinska Institute, said that drug costs were a small proportion of the total cost of cancer treatment, which is dominated by hospital costs.

Mike Richards, National Clinical Director for Cancer, said: “We do not in any way block the use of drugs awaiting a NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) appraisal and have made it clear to the NHS that it should not withhold funding for treatments because NICE guidance is not available.

“Ways of strengthening this message are being explored.”

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