8 August 2016 - Treatments for blood cancer, skin cancer and high cholesterol among six new medicines accepted for routine use in Scotland.

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

Ibrutinib (Imbruvica) was accepted for the treatment of mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) after consideration under SMC’s Patient and Clinician Engagement process (PACE) for medicines that treat end of life and very rare conditions. MCL is an extremely rare, incurable, aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) (a cancer of the white blood cells). In the PACE meeting, patient groups and clinicians spoke of how there are limited effective treatment options for this condition, which can make MCL extremely difficult for patients and their families to deal with. Ibrutinib is a targeted treatment for MCL, and has the advantage of being an oral capsule which is easy to administer, as well as being effective and well tolerated. It has shown high response rates and may offer a survival benefit for patients in whom there are no other effective and tolerable treatment options.

The Committee also accepted a submission for ibrutinib for a sub-group of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) and rare genetic abnormalities (17p deletion or TP53 mutation). Prognosis for these patients is particularly poor. PACE participants highlighted that current treatments for this condition are limited, and that ibrutinib has been shown to delay progression of the disease and to offer patients a potential improvement in quality of life.

Read SMC press release