Cancer drug battle goes to court

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A cancer patient could die within the next two months without a drug that doctors say could give him three more years, the High Court has heard.

Colin Ross, 55, from Horsham, West Sussex, who has the blood cancer multiple myeloma, launched his legal battle to obtain the drug Revlimid.

Mr Ross is challenging a decision by West Sussex Primary Care Trust (PCT) last March to refuse funding.

QC Richard Clayton said the decision to refuse the drug was "irrational".

He told Judge Simon Grenfell the trust had "erred" in its estimate of the cost effectiveness of Revlimid and had been over-rigid in the operation of its funding policy.

"This application for this drug is the end of the road for [Mr Ross]," he said. The Royal Marsden are sitting there with the drug in their fridges Colin Ross

"Either he gets the drug and is able to have life-prolonging treatment, or he doesn't and treatment ceases, with inevitable consequences."

Mr Clayton said the case raised the "random and disquieting" problem of treatment depending on a patient's postcode.

"Were the claimant to live a mile-and-a-half in either direction from where he does he would have received the drug," said Mr Clayton.

He said 60% of applications made for exceptional funding with the drug in England and Scotland had succeeded.

Leading cancer specialist Professor Karol Sikora has said Mr Ross is "eminently suitable" for the treatment, Mr Clayton told the court.

Arriving at court, Mr Ross said: "Today is hugely important. If I don't win and I get no further treatment I won't be here for Christmas, it is as simple as that."

Little distance

Mr Ross, who has two children and four grandchildren, said he had spoken to another patient at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London four weeks ago.

"The subject of Revlimid came up," he said.

"She told me she had applied for the same drug earlier this year and had been put on it.

"I live in West Sussex, and she lives 12 miles down the road in East Sussex. How can it be that, in such a little distance, one can have it and one cannot?"

Mr Ross said Revlimid costs £5,000 per course, with his medical team having requested funding for an initial 3 to 4 courses.

"The Royal Marsden are sitting there with the drug in their fridges. They have got it," he said.

Mr Ross was with his long-term companion and carer Wendy Forbes-Newbegin, 52, who has breast cancer.

"The mental anguish he has been going through is appalling," she said.

"The stress of his illness is bad enough, but to have to fight for this treatment has just been disgusting."

The case continues.