Tackle is extremely disappointed that today, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), announces Abiraterone will not be available for men with advanced prostate cancer pre-chemotherapy. Tackle has appealed against NICE’s many limitations to advanced prostate cancer drugs, which will leave men without successful treatment.

This vital drug can help increase life span and control symptoms for men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), when it has spread to other parts of the body, and has stopped responding to hormone therapy treatments. Many men are unable through ill health to withstand the rigours of a chemotherapy regime. In such cases Abiraterone would be the right pathway for them. NICE has effectively blocked this therapy for the future. In limited cases the drug can be acquired until 2016 from the Cancer Drug Fund (CDF).  Recent decisions from NICE have effectively reduced to zero treatments for men at this stage of their disease other than chemotherapy. 

Hugh Gunn, Treasurer, commented: “We’re so distraught that NICE keeps limiting these life saving drugs for men with no other life lines, with seemingly no evidence to support its decisions. We will continue to question and appeal against NICE limitations and provide evidence of these drugs improving lives, wherever possible.”