Prep­ping for yet more pricey rare dis­ease drugs, UK launch­es £340M 'In­no­v­a­tive Med­i­cines Fund'

The UK is ex­pand­ing its con­tro­ver­sial Can­cer Drugs Fund in­to rare dis­ease.

On Wednes­day, the coun­try’s Na­tion­al Health Ser­vice an­nounced a new £340 mil­lion ef­fort called the In­no­v­a­tive Med­i­cines Fund to cov­er the cost of new rare dis­ease drugs that don’t yet have enough da­ta to sat­is­fy the gov­ern­ment’s pric­ing watch­dog but might still of­fer some ben­e­fit for pa­tients. Like the sim­i­lar, decade-old can­cer ef­fort, reg­u­la­tors would then col­lect da­ta to “en­sure their pric­ing and long term use rep­re­sents good val­ue for the NHS over­all.”

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