Is access to new medicines improving in Scotland?
A drug for advanced ovarian cancer and three other medicines have been accepted for use in the NHS in Scotland.
The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has backed niraparib (Zejula) after consideration through the patient and clinician engagement (PACE) process, which is used for medicines that treat end-of-life and very rare conditions.
SMC also accepted alectinib (Alecensa) for a rare type of non-small cell lung cancer; glycerol phenylbutyrate (Ravicti) for urea cycle disorders; and conestat alfa (Ruconest) for a rare condition of acute hereditary angioedema.
Sapropterin (Kuvan) for phenylketonuria and patiromer (Veltassa) for hyperkalemia were not accepted.