Cancer drug Sutent to be made available in Manchester

Manchester, March 25: It is celebration time for campaigners who battled for a cancerdefine drug to be made available in Manchester on the (National Health Service) NHS. Sutent, the drug used for kidney cancer treatment, will now be available for patients who require it.

Sunitinib (marketed as Sutent, and previously known as SU11248) is basically an oral, small-molecule, multi-targeted receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) inhibitor. It was given a stamp of approval by the FDA for the treatment of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and imatinib-resistant gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) on January 26, 2006.

Sutent has been in the news because of a ‘postcode lottery’ row after NHS bigwigs in Manchester declined to regularly fund it, even though other NHS trusts consented to pay.

The campaign to get Sutent on the NHS was kickstarted by music boss Tony Wilson after Manchester primary care trust did not pay for it when he was diagnosed with kidney cancerdefine. His friends offered to pay his bill but he could not be saved and died of a heart failure.

Drugs watchdog National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) had previously stated that even though Stutent can help in increasing the lifespan of a cancer patient by upto two years, still it does not provide value for money. Expenses for Stutent treatment work out to be more than £3,000 for a six-week cycle.

But the good news is that now it will become a standard NHS treatment as its manufacturers Pfizer have decided to provide the first course of the treatment absolutely free of charge.

The latest progress has drawn appreciation from many quarters. Salford grandmother Jean Murphy, who lost a High Court appeal to get Sutent to treat her kidney cancer, was quoted as saying, “I am very pleased no one will have to fight for Sutent like I did. It is good to see they have changed their minds but I do think there is something very wrong with a system which forces sick people to fight for treatment.”

At last Mrs Murphy, 63, started the treatment after a donor consented to pay for it. Consequently, her local health trust also decided to fund her treatment after they saw its effectiveness. Doctors had told her last April that she would survive only 18 months. But with this treatment she is feeling much better and has stopped using a wheelchair, oxygen supply and stairlift.

Prof Robert Hawkins, from Manchester cancer hospital The Christie, said he was ‘delighted’. He said: “It will remove a great deal of anxiety. It does not work for everyone and it is certainly not a cure, but we knew it was effective. He further added, “It was around a year before NICE began to consider Sutent and the same time again before they approved it-both of these time scales were too long.”

According to a study that was published in the February 1, 2008 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, it was discovered that a Phase II study of Sutent (sunitinib) had shown noticeable activity in certain cancers. The researchers specially noted that some advanced, non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC) that have been treated before, responded to the medication.