What price a longer life?

Britain’s National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) reckons four new drugs for kidney cancer are not cost effective, even though they may extend patients’ lives by several months.

The complex calculations used by the watchdog show the drugs, which can cost over 30,000 pounds per patient a year, are just too expensive, given the limited benefits they provide.

NICE estimates using the medicines would cost between 71,500 and 171,300 pounds for every year of healthy life gained.

NICE argues it has to make hard choices about rationing healthcare if other areas are not to suffer; that’s what an equitable health service is all about.

But the preliminary recommendation, which is subject to appeal, has been slammed as a death sentence by some cancer charities.

Drugmakers, too, are concerned — especially as more governments look admiringly at the work of NICE.

Scientific advances and huge unmet medical need make cancer care the area of fastest growth for drug manufacturers. But while uptake has been fast in the United States, Europe is proving a harder market to crack.

Ultimately, it is for society to decide what it is ready to spend on medicines. The question is: where should the bar be set?

The government’s drugs watchdog has given the go-ahead for the sale of an oral antibiotic without prescription for the first time to treat chlamydia, in a move that pushes back the barriers to self-medication. Patients aged 16 will be able to buy the azithromycin pill to treat the sexually transmitted disease.

It is designed for use, alongside a test kit, by people who have the infection – and their sexual partners.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency says it will provide a convenient effective treatment.  But should such drugs be offered without prescription? Some critics say it will boost sexual promiscuity. What do you think?

A dramatic last-minute hitch to plans for France's EDF to buy British Energy leaves managements, shareholders and especially the British government in a quandary.

It was a 12 billion pounds ($24 billion) deal that was supposed to relaunch Britain's nuclear energy programme. Everyone had been told to expect it. In fact, the collapse of talks came too late for French newspapers, several of which had been briefed on the deal and splashed it prominently on their front pages on Friday.

In end, however, big insitutional investors persuaded British Energy to reject EDF's offer as low-ball, despite the best endeavours of the British government, with a 35-percent stake. 

So what happens next? Talks are continuing and British business minister John Hutton says he remains convinced an EDF takeover makes sense; yet the gulf between the EDF and British Energy boards on price is clearly substantial. British Energy says there can be no certainty of any deal.

It is yet another headache to spoil Prime Minister Gordon Brown's summer holiday, as his popularity slumps to a record low .

(Reuters photo: A sign is seen on the security fence of British Energy's Heysham nuclear power station)   

Whose DNA is it anyway?

A “citizens’ inquiry” instigated by the Human Genetics Commission, a government advisory body, wants the records of people who have not been convicted, or whose convictions are long spent, to be deleted from the forensic National DNA Database and says the whole archive should be overseen by an independent body.

The database was established in 1995 in Britain - the country where scientists first pioneered the technique of DNA fingerprinting.

It now contains genetic profiles on more than 4 million people, representing the highest proportion of any population on a forensic DNA database in the world, at over 6 percent.

A future government might misuse the information, members of the inquiry fear. One  says keeping all the DNA records would be the first step towards a totalitarian state.

Police, though, find the database a boon, especially in trying to solve ”cold” cases from the past.

What do you think? Is the database becoming too big?

John Clarke, head of consumer healthcare at GlaxoSmithKline, talks to Ben Hirschler about the prospects for his division.

There has been speculation over the last year that Glaxo might sell off its healthcare unit.

But Clarke says there are good prospects for continued growth in the sector and that healthcare remains a business Glaxo “would continue to be very interested in”.

Click on the video below to see the full interview.

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