In Professor Karol Sikora’s article about the team of oncologists, scientists and people working in UK cancer care, who prepared a report for the Lancet on the new breed of biologic or designer drugs, the 37 experts expressed several concerns:
Firstly, these drugs are expensive, secondly they do have side-effects and thirdly, they dont seem to deliver great increased survival benefits. So much so that NICE has yet to approve them even saying that the cost-benefit was prohibitive. While the experts preparing the report welcomed involvement from a number of contributors, the pharmaceutical companies declined to play any part. This lack of involvement seems to say it all.
Drugs mentioned in the article by Professor Sikora include
Zactima
Yervoy
Provenge
Zytiga
Halaven
Jevtana
Xalkori
Adcetris
Each has been written up separately in our review
Your drugs so you can see what they do for breast, prostate, lung cancer and so on.