The drug is already used for advanced cancer
Campaigners have failed to persuade the government to increase access to breast cancer drug Herceptin.
The Fighting for Herceptin group presented a petition of 34,000 signatures to Downing Street calling for immediate wider access to the drug.

The campaigners claim as many as 2,000 women may be dying in the UK each year because they are denied access.

However, health minister Rosie Winterton said greater access would depend on a wider licence.

At present, Herceptin is only prescribed on the NHS to women with advanced breast cancer.

Clinical trials have indicated it would also benefit women in the early stages of the disease, although the drug is not currently licensed for use in this group.

Primary care trusts (PCTs) could fund treatment for these women if they so wished - but campaigners say lack of funds and lack of official approval mean that many women who could benefit are being denied the drug.

Massive evidence

Dorothy Griffiths, who is leading the campaign, said: "I would not be around today were it not for Herceptin - yet women are still being denied the chance of life in the UK.

"Since launching this campaign, it's become clear to me that there are thousands of women out there that could be benefiting from this drug.

"A generation of women are being taken away from their children because the government refuses to fund Herceptin.

"This is in spite of massive evidence that in early breast cancer it can even stop the cancer from returning."

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt ordered the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to fast track its assessment of Herceptin earlier this year after the charity CancerBACUP warned it could be 2007 before the drug was made widely available on the NHS.

NICE is meeting on Thursday to discuss how best to speed up its assessment procedures following general criticism that many drugs are taking too long to reach patients. A statement is expected by the end of this week.

However, it says it cannot consider Herceptin as a treatment for early stage breast cancer until it has received a licence.

Stress for women

Clara MacKay, of the charity Breast Cancer Care, said: "The situation is putting a great deal of stress on women who might benefit from the drug.

"The evidence is very strong that treatment with Herceptin has the potential to make a huge difference to a significant number of women who have had a diagnosis of breast cancer for the first time.

However the length of the delay that women in the UK face before the drug becomes widely available seems to contrast strongly with its apparent benefits.

"We would hope that the Department of Health, drugs companies and the NHS, might be able to find a fast way to gain licensing, approval and infrastructure for the drug so that it can be prescribed easily for any whom it will benefit."

Ms Winterton said: "Although preliminary results on the use of Herceptin for early breast cancer are encouraging, more work needs to be done to be certain that the benefits of this treatment for this group of patients outweigh any potentially damaging side-effects.

"That is why there is a robust process for analysing any drug's safety before it can be licensed.

"Once a drug is licensed, we expect PCTs to take full account of the available evidence when reaching funding decisions.

"With record funding going into the NHS, where the evidence is very strong, there is no reason to believe a PCT would refuse funding."

A spokeswoman for the campaign said: "The meeting was nice and the minister listened to what they had to say.

"But they were told that they would have to wait for the licence before the drug is more widely available and they were told there would be no ring-fenced money for it.

"There were lots of tears when they got outside and everyone was disappointed."