New NHS cancer drugs fund approved

 

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Cancer patients have been promised faster access to innovative medicines by NHS England.

It has announced changes to the heavily criticised and regularly overspent Cancer Drugs Fund, which pays for drugs the NHS has deemed unaffordable.

The new system will start in July 2016 and have a fixed budget of £340m.

No patients receiving drugs on the old Cancer Drugs Fund will have their medication stopped.

At present, the CDF can choose to pay for innovative drugs the health watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), has rejected for widespread use on the NHS.

But under the new system, NICE will make all the decisions.

By the time a drug comes on to the market, NICE will give it a yes, no or maybe rating.

Those given the go-ahead will be routinely offered across the NHS while those given a maybe rating can be considered for the CDF.

However, there will be “clear entry and exit criteria” to ensure money is spent on only the best breakthrough drugs.

‘Clarity’

Bruce Keogh, medical director at NHS England, said: “Improving cancer care is an absolute priority for NHS England… that is dependent on access to treatments.

“[The CDF] will provide faster access for patients, I think that’s really important, and I think it will bring clarity to which drugs are the most effective sooner than we know at the moment.”

The fund, which was established in 2011 and covers England, has seen its costs rise to £340m in 2015-16 from an initial annual budget of £200m.

An NHS official said: “Drug companies will need to price their drugs responsibly, and we make no apology for maintaining the pressure on this point on behalf of the public.

“Companies keen to work with the NHS for patients will get a new fast-track route to NHS funding for promising new drugs, backed by a speeded up and more transparent NICE assessment process.”

Dr Paul Catchpole, from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, said: “If cancer medicines go through more or less exactly the same NICE appraisal process that was in place five years ago – which necessitated the setting up of the CDF in the first place – we will largely get the same answers as before – the majority of medicines will be turned down.

“Without substantial changes the ABPI estimates that under the proposals two thirds of existing CDF medicines are likely to no longer be available to NHS patients by the end of the year.”

Target Ovarian Cancer chief executive Annwen Jones said: “Important questions remain unanswered with this proposal.

“The Cancer Drugs Fund must retain the power to make a real difference to people’s lives in the face of budget cuts.”

Source BBC Health http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35650170

New NHS cancer drugs fund approved

NHS delivers ambitious IT project - believed to be the biggest of its kind

NHS delivers ambitious IT project – believed to be the biggest of its kind – Health & Social Care Information Centre

An NHS IT project has successfully completed the final phase of its plan to move the entire technological backbone of the NHS from a private company to in-house, public sector management.

HSCIC has just completed an ambitious 18 month transition project to entirely rebuild and redevelop the Spine on Open Source software and to move it to in-house management. This was achieved without disrupting the service it provides to 28,000 organisations and enabled the secure transfer of almost 150TB of data, including the demographic details of 80m people.

The new Spine is believed to be the biggest public sector IT system to be built entirely on Open Source software, making it easier for developers to work with. It is managed from the Health and Social Care Information Centre’s headquarters in Leeds.

The system has saved £21m in its first year; has operated at 100 per cent availability since August 2015; and saves the NHS a staggering 750 working days of time every single day.

The NHS Spine is the technological backbone of the NHS and allows safe care to be delivered to patients. It is part of the Critical National Infrastructure, supporting care and enabling a smooth running NHS for around 28,000 organisations, including hospitals, GP surgeries, Ambulance Trusts, NHS 111 services and pharmacies. Operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it handles up to 1,800 transactions per second.

Spine connects clinicians and patients to essential national services including the Electronic Prescription Service, Summary Care Record and the e-Referral Service, which allow clinicians to deliver safe and effective care to patients.

Rob Shaw, Director of Assurance Services, explains, “The usual practice for a big public sector project like this has been to give the whole thing to a large supplier. We decided that we could manage and make improvements to Spine more flexibly in house, and have worked with a number of specialist SMEs to successfully deliver our aims.

“The NHS relies on the Spine in order to operate effectively, and we couldn’t afford for it to experience long periods of downtime. For this reason we planned the transitions minute by minute to ensure that we would not affect patient care or inconvenience NHS workers any more than was absolutely necessary. In the end we managed the entire transition with just minutes of downtime, none of which was unplanned.”

The first transition was completed in August 2014, when the Core Spine services were transferred to the HSCIC. In February 2015 the Care Identity Service, which manages secure access to IT services for NHS staff; and the SUS database, which holds 80m patient demographic records, was smoothly transitioned. The project was completed on 31 January 2016 when MESH was launched and HSCIC took on responsibility for managing secure clinical messaging between Spine applications. This is particularly important for pathology and other test results, which are sent directly from the laboratory to the appropriate clinician using this system.

The new service has not primarily been designed to save money, but principally to allow Spine to be developed in a way that is faster and more responsive to user needs. Improvements have already been made since Spine was transitioned, including the introduction of a range of new services and in the coming months HSCIC will develop and launch new methods for logging on to Spine, allowing mobile access to Spine services.

Rob Shaw explains, “We wanted to develop a service that HSCIC and developers could work with and adapt, to suit the needs of individual NHS organisations. The entire system is built on Open Source, freely available software, which makes it much easier to work with and develop. The team working on Spine operate an Agile working method, which makes it much faster to improve and change the service. We are all proud of what has already been achieved and excited to continue to develop the service in the future.”

Source HSCIC http://www.hscic.gov.uk/article/6968/NHS-delivers-ambitious-IT-project—believed-to-be-the-biggest-of-its-kind

NHS delivers ambitious IT project - believed to be the biggest of its kind

Daiichi Sankyo collaborates on e-patient AF resource

Will work with European platform People Who on new illness profile

 

Daiichi Sankyo is collaborating with European e-patients platform People Who on a new atrial fibrillation (AF) resource.

The aim is to spread awareness of the condition in the UK and to offer online services that help improve the lives of those affected by AF in any way.

Specifically it will offer an online community that allows users to pose questions to fellow members and a qualified doctor; a magazine with treatments, prevention and research articles, plus patient stories; and a ‘control’ section, where patients can record the food they eat, medication they take and their readings or test results.

The target audience for the resource ranges from patients who have been diagnosed with AF, those caring for someone with the illness or people that want to find out more about AF.

The AF section on People Who’s website adds to the range of conditions it already caters for, including Alzheimer’s disease, psoriasis, diabetes and skin cancer.

People Who began in 2012 in Spain, where its industry partners include Novartis, Lilly AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo.

Since then it expanded in 2014 to the UK and Italy – where it currently only works with Daiichi Sankyo, France and Germany – where its partners are Roche and Daiichi Sankyo in 2014.

In 2015 the company opened its online doors in the US and its future plans include dedicated sites for Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru and Chile.

Source PMLive http://www.pmlive.com/blogs/digital_intelligence/archive/2016/february/daiichi_sankyo_collaborates_on_atrial_fibrillation_resource_for_e-patients_935610

Daiichi Sankyo collaborates on e-patient AF resource

UK moves to accelerate digital health uptake

Aims to make London the global capital of digital health technologies

Three London academic health science networks are collaborating on a new initiative to digital health innovation.

The DigitalHealth.London initiative will create a network of clinicians, healthcare providers, research institutes and entrepreneurs to drive the creation of, and access to, revolutionary healthcare technologies shaped by patients’ needs.

London mayor Boris Johnson: “This initiative will position London at the forefront of digital innovation – bringing together the city’s world-class strengths in life sciences and digital technology and channeling that innovation to develop new ground-breaking products.”

The programme was established in the wake of recommending London create a digital healthcare hub to better achieve its ambitions of becoming “the world’s healthiest major global city”.

Its three academic partners – Health Innovation Network, Imperial College Health Partners and UCLPartners – are joined by MedCity, the Mayor’s life sciences promotional agency for the greater southeast.

Together, they will improve NHS procurement processes and routes to market, promote research and streamline communications between clinicians, patients and developers.

Professor Joanne Hackett, director of commercial development at UCLPartners, said: “Our focus through this initiative is to bring health services and industry into the same space so that by understanding each other better we create an environment in which small business can grow – enriching both our economy and our well-being.”

The London Health Commission has expressed its ambition to generate 50,000 new jobs in the digital health sector, an objective reflected in DigitalHealth.London’s first project, which is also launched today.

The new Digital Accelerator programme will support emerging SMEs in development of their products through consultation with clinicians and healthcare experts as well as creating opportunities to implement these in hospitals.

Over an initial three-year period, 90 digital health businesses will be chosen to take part in the programme, which is jointly sponsored by the European Regional Development Fund, Guy & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, UCLPartners, Imperial College Healthcare Partners, Chelsea and Westminster Health Charity, MedCity and Digital Catapult.

The first information day on how to apply to the Digital Accelerator programme will be held on 7 March.

Source PMLive http://www.pmlive.com/pharma_news/uk_moves_to_accelerate_digital_health_uptake_928487

UK moves to accelerate digital health uptake

EU forms mHealth app working group

Tasks it with drafting guidelines for assessing the validity and reliability of the data collected

The European Commission is working towards improving the safety and transparency of health information collected by mobile apps.

Its newly set up mHealth app working group will be tasked with assessing the validity and reliability of the data that is collected and processed.

The Commission also wanted it to produce draft guidelines for the area, which it says should be ready to be published by the end of this year.

The promise of health app guidelines follows the Green Paper on mobile health issued by the Commission in 2014, when it outlined the technology’s potential to empower citizens to manage their own health, improve quality of care and comfort for patients and assist health professionals in their work.

The Paper also identified safety and transparency of information as one of the main issues that limited mHealth uptake.

The European Commission said: “The large number of lifestyle and wellbeing apps available, combined with no clear evidence on their quality and reliability, is raising concerns about the ability of consumers to assess their usefulness.

“This could limit the effective uptake of mHealth apps to the benefit of public health.”

The 20 members of its mHealth working groups represent civil society, research and industry organisations and include the European Society of Cardiology, King’s College London, and Hannover Medical School.

Also taking part are MSD (Europe), French assessment body Medappcare, UK-based NGO the Digital Health and Care Alliance and PatientView.

Last year two stakeholder meetings found an appetite to work towards common assessment methodologies for mHealth, to aid with areas such as linking apps to electronic health records and for their effective uptake in clinical practice.

“Health professionals need the reassurance about the reliability of the apps, in order to be able to recommend apps to their patients and take apps’ data into consideration in a treatment/monitoring process,” the Commission said.

The new working group is expected to build on existing initiatives and best practices in Europe to provide common quality criteria and assessment methodologies for a variety of different stakeholders.

It’s been a long road to get to this stage – the Commission first outlined its plans for more health systems to use digital technology back in 2012, following this up with the 2014 Green Paper. Nevertheless, it says the working group will have its first meeting in March and guidelines will be forthcoming before the end of the year.

Source PMLive http://www.pmlive.com/blogs/digital_intelligence/archive/2016/february/eu_forms_mhealth_app_working_group_925519

EU forms mHealth app working group

Merck's digital health accelerator expands into Africa

Will run new startup support programme in Nairobi

Merck has expanded its digital health accelerator programme, opening it up in the first country outside its home territory of Germany.

The company has picked Kenya for the new programme, which will run for three months and see it look for three digital health startups to support with equity-free funding of $15,000.

Merck Innovation Center head Michael Gamber said: “Africa is one of the most promising and dynamic markets for digital health, driven by a vibrant and innovative startup culture. With our accelerator programme, we aim to become part of it.

“With our programme in Nairobi and our growing international network, we made a first big step to go truly global with our accelerator. We want to create a platform where the potential to execute ideas is not limited by location.”

In addition to funding, those selected to take part in the programme will also be able to make use of working space at co-working tech hub the Nairobi Garage and coaches and mentors from Merck‘s global network.

Merck has also opened the second round of its three-month accelerator programme. Graduates from its 2015 scheme included digital pharmacy app Apoly, which provides pharmaceutical advice and a medication delivery service.

The programme’s next round comes with equity-free funding of €25,000, regular coaching and office space at the Merck Innovation Center at its Darmstadt headquarters.

The company said the two programmes would be “strongly connected in terms of expertise and knowledge exchange to grow a global accelerator network”.

“Coming from a global company we also want to develop our accelerator programme to become a global platform. The execution of an idea should not be limited by the conditions of the location where it was born,” said Gamber.

There’s a growing trend for pharma firms, and other less traditional health players, to look for digital health companies to support and potentially partner with.

One of the first was Bayer with its Grants4Apps programme, with Merck Sharp & Dohme – via its Velocity Health collaboration – and Microsoft among those also active in this area.

Source PMLive http://www.pmlive.com/blogs/digital_intelligence/archive/2016/february/mercks_digital_health_accelerator_expands_into_africa_923369

Merck's digital health accelerator expands into Africa