Published 16 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a864
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a864

News

Judge tries to broker treatment deal for patients with macular degeneration in funding row

Clare Dyer

1 BMJ

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The judge presiding over a legal challenge to a primary care trust’s refusal to fund sight saving drugs on the NHS has adjourned the case in an attempt to broker a deal.

Mr Justice Forbes, sitting at the High Court in London, called on Novartis, manufacturer of ranibizumab (Lucentis), to try to work out an agreement with Warwickshire Primary Care Trust (PCT) so that the three patients who have brought the case to court can get the drug before their sight deteriorates further.

The three—Raymond Liggins, 77, Jean Middleton, 78, and Patricia Meadows, 65—have wet age related macular degeneration (wet AMD), the most common cause of sight loss in the United Kingdom.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the body that decides which drugs should be recommended for provision on the NHS, has produced draft guidance under which trusts would fund the first 14 courses of treatment . . . [Full text of this article]


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