Most innovative cancer drugs don’t get to U.K. patients in a timely manner

A new analysis finds that the newest drugs approved by the European Medicines Agency are not quickly reaching patients. Looking at data from 2000-2016, researchers found that “high innovation” drugs — because they targeted a new molecule or formed a new class of medicines — took around 14 years from when they were first patented to when the U.K.’s National Health Service approved them for patient use. This was more than three years longer than the time it took for new medicines approved within an existing class of drugs. Some, like the bone cancer drug Mepact, took almost 20 years to get to patients. Still, the NHS approved only 38% of the most novel drugs for patient use, since others may have shown limited benefits or limited cost-effectiveness. Drug companies may need to be incentivized to do more — such as experiment with more targets or new clinical trial designs — to better ensure that drugs reach patients, the authors suggest.