Leukaemia drug approved in U-turn

Cancer charities have welcomed a reversal by the med-icines watchdog that will back the use of a "landmark" drug for more adults with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML).

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) said that imatinib, also known as Glivec and made by Novartis, should be recommended for patients who have not responded to other therapies or are in the "chronic" stage of the disease.

In May, it had recommended against the drug for patients in the chronic phase. That would have significantly limited its use in England and Wales, but new results from a clinical trial had become available since, a Nice spokeswoman said. The institute estimates the annual cost of Glivec is between £19,000 and £28,500 for a person in the chronic phase, and the additional cost to the NHS of Glivec treatment at between £11.8m and £15.8m in the first year.

"This is the day leukaemia patients have been waiting for," said Dr Richard Sullivan of the charity Cancer Research UK. Dr David Grant, the scientific director at the Leuk-aemia Research Fund, said: "We believe in time it will be seen to be a landmark treatment." He said 90 per cent of patients in the chronic phase, for whom interferon had failed, had seen an improvement when they used Glivec.