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Wales Resists NICE and Continues to Offer Abraxane

March 24, 2016

Wales is bucking the UK’s health spending watchdog, saying it will continue to offer Celgene’s pancreatic cancer drug Abraxane to patients in that country despite a push from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence not to cover the drug.

Minister of Health, Mark Drakeford, said the decision was based in part on a September 2014 recommendation from the All-Wales Medicines Strategy Group to use the drug, a decision that was superseded by NICE’s recommendation a year later.

The terms of the access agreement were not disclosed, and Celgene did not respond to a request for comment.