As a member of the Cancer Drug Fund (CDF) Charity Group Cancer52 has signed an open letter to Professor Peter Clark, Chair of the CDF.
You can see the full letter here.
Essentially we welcome the opportunity to be engaged in the CDF process, particularly through the invitation to nominate a lay representative for the panel from Cancer52 (Annwen Jones, CEO of Target Ovarian Cancer). However, as we highlighted in our Cancer52 response to the Cancer Drug Fund Standard Operating Procedures (CDF SOP) consultation we do have concerns about the approach by which the CDF employs to delist drugs, including the lack of transparency. In relation to the announcement of 12th January 2015 we are particularly concerned that many of our 80 plus members are unable fulfil their role in supporting people with cancer if we are not kept appraised in good time of changes in the approved drugs on the CDF list.
For the future we remain committed to working to ensure there is a voice for rare and less common cancers at every stage in the process. The Cancer Drug Fund was set up with an aim of ensuring that there was a route to allow people with rare and less common cancers access to drugs that they wouldn't otherwise be able to access, and our aim is to ensure that people with those cancers do not lose out as a result of any changes to the CDF.