Medicine: Experimental Drugs

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, there is no need to think in those terms. There are many routes by which patients can access medicines lawfully and maintain their legal rights. We want to make sure that ethics and patient protection continue to be at the forefront of drug development. It would be wrong to give an indication to drug companies that they can throw caution to the winds in that sense.

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes]

It often takes as long as five or six years to develop a new drug. Sometimes, even after that period, when permission has been given, something is found late in the day. Therefore, does the Minister agree that we need to know what sort of period he is thinking of in accepting drugs that have not yet been approved?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, this will very much depend on a case-by-case analysis of the drug in question. If there is a very promising new drug that is a breakthrough medicine, where there is no alternative treatment, there may be a case for considering that more favourably than a drug for which there is a readily suitable alternative. As I mentioned earlier, the menu of options available to us, such as an early access scheme for unlicensed medicines and an adaptive licensing scheme within European Union rules for licensed medicines, can perhaps be tailor-made to suit the drug in question.