An agreement with the regulator has cleared the way for Enhertu to be offered on the NHS in England, with patients able to receive it starting Thursday, according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Despite availability in Scotland, where health policy is devolved, England was among the final European nations yet to roll it out publicly. Some women opted to pay privately, spending about £118,000 for a course, which the article also lists as $159,000. Campaigners had pressed hard for this outcome after a 2024 rejection by the drug price regulator, and Breast Cancer Now says many patients died in the meantime. Bloomberg had previously reported that a deal was close.
Eligibility covers about 1,000 women annually whose cancer cells express lower levels of HER2. Clinical results show the treatment can extend survival on average by approximately six months.
Under a recent US-UK trade pact, the UK committed to higher payments for newly launched medicines. The deal specified two shifts: raising the NHS value-for-money threshold and revising the instrument that assesses how treatments affect patients' quality of life. In August, the pricing watchdog said it had put the second change into effect. With that adjustment in place, NICE's reassessment meant the price offered by AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo was now judged to deliver value for money.
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Drugmakers are pushing European governments to pay more for innovative medicines or risk missing out on launches. To date, the UK is the sole country to sign on to that approach, yet many therapies will still fail to pass the regulator's cost-effectiveness bar. AstraZeneca Chief Executive Officer Pascal Soriot pointed to the prolonged Enhertu dispute as proof that the UK was failing to properly reward innovation. After the US trade agreement, Astra said it would invest £300 million in the UK; Soriot said the country was "moving in the right direction" while urging additional reforms. Daiichi's UK general manager Laura McMullin said, "NICE's decision to revisit the way it values late-stage cancer medicines is a positive initial step which enabled this outcome."
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