13 June 2016 - Treatments for Parkinson’s disease, advanced leukaemia and asthma among four new medicines accepted for routine use in NHS Scotland.

The SMC has today published advice accepting four new medicines for routine use by NHS Scotland.

Co-careldopa (Duodopa) for advanced Parkinson’s disease and blinatumomab (Blincyto) for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) were both accepted after consideration under SMC’s Patient and Clinician Engagement process (PACE) for medicines that treat end of life and very rare conditions. Also accepted were mepolizumab (Nucala) for severe asthma and febuxostat (Adenuric) for patients at risk of Tumour Lysis Syndrome (TLS), a complication due to the breakdown of cancer cells leading to a rise in uric acid level in the blood which can then cause kidney damage.

The Committee was unable to accept cabazitaxel (Jevtana) for advanced prostate cancer and evolocumab (Repatha) for high cholesterol.

For more details, go to: http://www.scottishmedicines.org.uk/About_SMC/Latest_news/News_Articles/June_2016_decisions_news_release