Immunotherapy

Hope for patients with early-stage lung cancer as new treatment approved for use on NHS England.

3 new cancer treatments have now been approved by the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) for use on the NHS in Scotland, including 2 breast cancer treatments and 1 for lung cancer.

A new treatment for some people with a type of non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) will now be routinely available on the NHS in England, following its approval by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has recommended the use of the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for some adults in England with a type of advanced melanoma skin cancer.

Three new cancer drugs have been given the go-ahead by the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) for routine use in Scotland, two for non small cell lung cancer and one for Hodgkin lymphoma, but a fourth has been rejected.

The immunotherapy drug nivolumab (Opdivo) has been made available for some people in England with oesophageal cancer, in what has been described as a ‘step change’ for people with this cancer.

Pembrolizumab will be made available for some adults in Scotland with bowel cancer that’s spread to other parts of the body.  

The spin out companies are engineering viruses to seek and destroy cancer cells and using bacteria to break down the physical defences of tumours.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has approved the immunotherapy drug nivolumab (Opdivo) for some patients with advanced oesophageal cancer.

Cancer Research UK’s spin-out, GammaDelta Therapeutics, has been given approval to trial its unique T-cell therapy in the US.