Breast Cancer: Drugs

Officials across the Department, NHS England, and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) regularly meet with patient groups to discuss medicines policy, access, and uptake, including with organisations representing individuals affected by metastatic breast cancer.

NICE makes recommendations for the National Health Service on whether new licensed medicines, including for cancer, should be routinely funded by the NHS based on an assessment of clinical and cost effectiveness. NICE aims wherever possible to publish guidance on medicines close to the time of licensing to ensure that patients are able to benefit from rapid access to clinically and cost effective new treatments. NICE is able to recommend promising new cancer drugs for use through the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) where there is too much uncertainty for NICE to be able to recommend routine funding. NHS England also funds the use of licensed medicines, via the CDF, that are recommended by NICE from the date of positive draft guidance, enabling patient access up to five months earlier than would otherwise be the case.

81% of NICE decisions on cancer drugs have recommended the treatment for some or all of the eligible patient population, and these treatments are now available for the treatment of NHS patients. As part of the United States and United Kingdom trade arrangement, announced in April 2026, NICE is now using a new higher cost-effectiveness threshold. The update to the NICE cost effectiveness threshold has already made a direct difference for NHS patients with several treatments recommended, including treatments for cancer, that may not have been under the previous threshold.

NICE and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency also launched a new joint pathway for medicines, a commitment in the Government’s Life Sciences Sector Plan, which will accelerate access for NHS patients to clinically and cost effective medicines by three to six months.