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NHS Innovative Medicines Fund provides route to new treatments for bleeding disorders

Written by Jeff Courtney, January 14, 2022

Last year the Government announced plans for a new fund to allow people with rare diseases in England to get earlier access to revolutionary new treatments. This is likely to be the mechanism for people with bleeding disorders to get access to expensive innovative treatments like gene and cell therapies once they are licensed.

The planned Innovative Medicines Fund mirrors the Cancer Drugs Fund which has been running for 5 years to get people with cancer earlier access to promising new treatments.

This new fund ring-fences £340 million a year to pay for these new rare disease treatments across a range of conditions. The intention is that the fund pays for new treatments where there is uncertainty about their cost-effectiveness. It will then give the NHS time to collect data on how effective they are in treating patients in the NHS.

These “managed access” arrangements will be time-limited of up to 5 years, after which NICE should be able to decide whether or not to recommend the treatments for ongoing use by the NHS.

A consultation on the plans is currently underway and THS will be responding to it on behalf of our members to set out our views. If you have any thoughts on the proposals leave a comment or email us on [email protected]