Seriously ill patients in UK will have access to unlicensed drugs

Patients in the United Kingdom are to be given access to some drugs before they have been formally licensed, in an effort to speed up access.

The early access scheme, which was first proposed in 2006 and has been under active discussion for the past two years,1 will apply to life threatening and seriously debilitating conditions.

The first step is for the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency to designate a new drug as a “promising innovative medicine” (PIM) on the basis of early trial data and as long as the agency is satisfied the drug meets an unmet …