'Miracle' MS Pill Won't Get NHS Funding

Multiple Sclerosis campaigners have claimed thousands of patients will be denied a tablet once hailed a breakthrough in treating the condition.
Rhiannon Mills, Sky News reporter

Fingolimod is the first pill to treat MS, but now NICE, the health watchdog, has ruled it should not be funded by the NHS because it is not cost effective.

Amanda Cook from Norfolk has taken the tablet for the past three years.

She told Sky News: "This tablet has changed my life completely. I think it's a very disappointing decision.

"It takes away another option for MS therapies and I think it's the wrong decision."

Research found that Fingolimod reduces the number of relapses for sufferers by more than a half, and cuts disability progression by 30 percent in some cases.


The decision today will really effect those people for whom current therapies aren't working or for one reason aren't able to take the new generation therapies. MS Society chief executive Simon Gillespie


But NICE - which recommends which medicines should be prescribed on the NHS - said: "Unfortunately our independent committee wasn't given sufficient evidence to show that Fingolimod could reduce relapses considerably better than the other treatments currently being used."

The MS society wants the health watchdog to reconsider the decision. They claim 6,000 patients could benefit from the drug.

Chief executive Simon Gillespie added: "You'd be better off having MS anywhere else in Europe really.

"There are five countries that are worse on the department of health figures than the UK.

"The decision today will really affect those people for whom current therapies aren't working or for one reason aren't able to take the new generation therapies."

Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital's Dr Martin Lees, who was involved in the clinical trials, said: "We had hoped it would be a very important additional therapeutic option for patients whose disease was not effectively controlled by standard therapies.

"That option is currently removed and there are no other very good options at present."