CONTRIBUTORS national health executive
Editorial Editor
Stephen Lewis
editorial@nationalhealthexecutive. com
Assistant Editor Richard Mackillican
richardm@cognitivepublishing.com Editorial Assistant Sacha Rowlands
sachar@cognitivepublishing.com
Production Art Director Chris Greenhalgh
chrisg@cognitivepublishing.com Advertising
Advertising Sales Executives Martin Jordan
martinj@cognitivepublishing.com Lee Turner
leet@cognitivepublishing.com
We reserve the right to edit submissions. If the return of material is required please enclose an S.A.E.
© Copyright 2010 Cognitive Publishing Ltd. ISSN 1754-1816
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, without prior written permission from the publishers.
The opinions and views expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of the management or the publishers.
All prices and data contained in advertisements are accepted by us in good faith as being correct at the time of going to press. However, neither the advertisers nor we as publishers can be held responsible for any variations affecting prices or availability which may occur after the publication has been closed for press.
All adverts are subject to our Terms of Acceptance. To view these and our full terms and conditions go to
www.cognitivepublishing.com
All effort has been made to verify and recognize copyright by Cognitive Publishing Ltd. All advertisement and editorial copy, including all images and text, are accepted in good faith by the publisher.
The party submitting copy acknowledges full responsibility for copyright clearance and accepts complete legal liability for all materials supplied. Cognitive Publishing Ltd reserves the right to reproduce all submitted editorial and images in any of its publications (including websites). All copyright resigns with original author.
Cognitive Publishing Ltd, 86 Deansgate, Manchester M3 2ER Tel: +44 (0)161 833 6320 Fax: +44 (0)161 832 0571 Email:
info@nationalhealthexecutive.com Web:
www.nationalhealthexecutive.com
Commercial Business Development Manager Roy C. Rowlands
royc@cognitivepublishing.com Circulation Manager Leanne Bennett
subscriptions@nationalhealthex-
ecutive.com
Accounts/Finance Heidi Rowlands
heidir@cognitivepublishing.com Administration Manager Danny Leatham
daniell@cognitivepublishing.com Publisher Roy V. Rowlands
royv@cognitivepublishing.com
Matt Hanson
matth@cognitivepublishing.com
A dirty job - but someone’s got to do it
I
n the last issue I wrote that the people who protested outside the offices of NICE about its decision not to fund the cancer drug Avastin should really have been protesting outside the offices of Roche, the drug’s manufacturers.
I suggested that if Avastin – one of the most expensive drugs in the world - was cheaper then there would be more chance of it being approved.
Now an open letter from 20 consultants and a patient group has been published on
bmj.com calling on the prime minister and health secretary to take action over a legal loophole that allows drug companies to make easy profits by licensing existing treatments for rare (orphan) diseases.
Average circulation for the period 1/1/09 – 31/12/09 is 7,993 per issue
“In the present economic situation it seems vital to ensure that systems are in place to prevent excessive commercial profits being made at the expense of patients and public spending,” say the signatories.
Dr Daphne Austin, chair of the UK Commissioning Public Health Network, said:
TT-COC-002610
Environmental Policy As a business the environment is very impor- tant to us. As such our magazines are printed using paper from a well-managed source. All inks used are vegetable based (soya or rape seed). Our printers are currently certified to ISO 14001 Environmental Management.
Stay informed, stay in front Nov/Dec 10
“It disgusts me, it really does. [Amifampridine] is one of a number of drugs that are not new, but under the legislation have been licensed so that they can be sold for much more money, which is pure profit.”
She believes the price set for the drug is “indecent” and points out that the extra cost of amifampridine in the UK “is equivalent to that of kidney dialysis for 323 patients.”
This kind of bad publicity is becoming more frequent which is probably why the drugs companies spend so much on countering it by finding increasingly creative ways of generating good publicity such as funding think tanks and patients groups and ghost writing product reviews.
In her book The Truth About The Drug Companies, How they deceive us and what to do about it, Dr Marcia Angell compares the industry to the Wizard of Oz—“full of bluster but now being exposed as something far different from its image. Instead of being an engine of innovation, it is a vast marketing machine.”
The NHS budget is finite. It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to decide which drugs are cost effective and which ones aren’t.
That’s why the NHS needs to stand firm against the pharmaceutical industry and why the transfer of NICE’s power to make decisions on access to new drugs and treatments to GP consortia is good news for drug companies and the most articulate patients but bad news for nearly everybody else.
nhe 3
EDITOR’S COMMENT
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100