Cancer patient calls for NHS drug use approval

A cancer patient who said he can live "a normal life again" after receiving a treatment on a clinical trial has backed a campaign for the drug to be made available on the NHS.

Surgeon Gareth Honeybone, from Sheffield, was diagnosed with bile duct cancer – or cholangiocarcinoma - when he was 27 and was treated with the drug zanidatamab.

The 31-year-old said: "The tumour disappeared from scans, which if I was on the standard treatment wouldn't have happened. If it wasn't for this drug I wouldn't be at the moment cancer free."

Officials from The National Institute for Healthcare and Care Excellence (NICE) initially rejected the drug for widespread use, but are discuss it again in March.

There were "important questions that still need answering" about how much benefit the drug provides, and how it compares to other treatments, a NICE spokesperson said.

"Our independent committee carefully reviewed all the available evidence," they said.

"This suggests zanidatamab is likely to help people live longer and delay their cancer getting worse.

"The committee was unable to make a positive recommendation based on the evidence submitted by the company at the first meeting," they added.

Honeybone had his first tumour surgically removed and treated with chemotherapy, but a new tumour was later detected.

After undergoing standard treatments again alongside zanidatamab, scans have shown the cancer is no longer visible.

"I'm one of the lucky ones, living a normal life again, thanks to zanidatamab," he said.

"I'm back at work full-time – unlike when I was having chemo and immunotherapy, when I couldn't work – and I was able to visit my brother in Australia over Christmas.

"I'm concerned that not approving this treatment for NHS patients will add to the inequalities in cholangiocarcinoma care we are already seeing – with people who are able to access clinical trials or have private healthcare benefiting from new life-extending treatments, and those that can't go on a trial or afford to pay for insurance, not surviving."

About 3,000 people die from bile duct cancer in England each year, making it one of the deadliest cancers.

Only about a quarter of people survive for a year after diagnosis.

Zanidatamab, or Ziihera, is for people with excess HER2, a protein which stimulates tumours to grow.

The drug activates the immune system to kill cancer cells and reduce the levels of HER2, preventing further growth.

Paul Howard, head of policy and research at cholangiocarcinoma charity AMMF, said current treatments for people with HER2 gene faults were "very limited".

"Whilst we recognise that Nice's recommendation to reject the use of zanidatamab in the NHS is not final, it is still very disappointing," he added.

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