{"id":40804,"date":"2025-04-22T10:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T10:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/40804\/"},"modified":"2025-04-22T10:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T10:14:09","slug":"im-a-doctor-heres-why-brexit-has-made-it-harder-to-get-life-saving-drugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/40804\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m a doctor – here\u2019s why Brexit has made it harder to get life-saving drugs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patients are losing out on life-changing drugs<\/a> for cancer <\/a>and rare diseases because of Brexit<\/a>, experts have warned.<\/p>\n

Treatments could be made available in the EU and US before the UK because of cost increases associated with Britain\u2019s departure from the bloc five years ago. <\/p>\n

Kidney Cancer UK urged the Government to streamline \u201cbureaucracy\u201d that is blocking clinical research into new cancer treatments<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dr David Nicholl, a neurologist specialising in rare diseases<\/a>, said drug companies are choosing to conduct medical trials in the EU and US instead of the UK as they offer larger population samples.<\/p>\n

He told The i Paper: \u201cIf you want to do a clinical trial you need big populations and, working with the European Union, that\u2019s a lot easier to do because it has a larger population.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the UK made a choice to leave the European Union<\/a>, we made a choice to make it more difficult to carry out clinical trials.\u201d<\/p>\n

The European Medicines Agency \u2013 the EU\u2019s watchdog for human and veterinary drugs \u2013 used to be based in London but was transferred to the Netherlands in 2019 due to Brexit.<\/p>\n

This created a chasm between regulation in the EU and the UK, which since 2021 has been fully regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).<\/p>\n

Dr Nicholl said: \u201cIf a drug company has a new drug that they think will have potential, they\u2019ll go to the [Food and Drug Administration] in the US and they\u2019ll go to the European Medicines Agency, that\u2019s based in Amsterdam since 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, that comes down to their population, because a drug company has to make money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Nicholl told The i Paper that clinical trials are particularly significant for rare diseases that currently lack available treatments in the UK.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThere was one particular trial where we were looking at a rare form of blindness. The placebo-controlled trial nearly fell through.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cost, I was told, was nearly an extra \u00a31m to sort out the placebo drug because of an extra hassle caused by Brexit.\u201d<\/p>\n

A leaked report obtained by The Guardian<\/a> revealed that cancer patients are being denied access to vital drugs and trials of ground-breaking treatments are being blocked by the red tape and extra costs caused by Brexit.<\/p>\n

Leaving the EU \u201cdamaged the practical ability\u201d of doctors to provide NHS patients with new drugs approved through international clinical trials, according to the 54-page report, which was compiled by experts from organisations including Cancer Research UK, the University of Southampton and research consultancy Hatch.<\/p>\n

The UK has joined the Critical Medicines Alliance, set up in January 2024 to bring together EU members states, industry experts and civil society to boost the provision of drugs that can result in patient harm if their administering is delayed or missed.<\/p>\n

However, campaigners have called on the Labour Government to take bolder steps to streamline healthcare regulation and trade, such as by drawing up a memorandum between the MHRA and the European Medicines Agency<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kidney Cancer UK\u2019s chief executive Malcolm Packer said clinical research has \u201creduced significantly\u201d in recent years.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cBrexit, government changes to funding and instability in the world markets have all contributed to a drop in investment in important clinical trials generally including in the UK.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UK has established a long-standing reputation for high standards in clinical research, but we must adapt as the global environment changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to ensure the UK remains an attractive place in which to carry out clinical research into new cancer treatments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means streamlining bureaucracy and removing post-Brexit barriers with the EU.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Government spokesperson said: \u201cWe are strengthening our relationship with the EU on research and have been providing extensive support for researchers to help them secure funding from the \u00a380 billion Horizon Europe programme and get more vital treatments from the lab to patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough the Cancer Healthcare Goals programme, we are enhancing collaboration between industry, academia, the NHS and charities and making it easier to conduct life-saving research in medical science and technology so patients can be diagnosed earlier and offered targeted therapies. <\/p>\n

\u201cSupport for cancer research is helping to deliver the Government\u2019s Plan for Change, as we build a better NHS and unleash life sciences as a force for economic growth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patients are losing out on life-changing drugs for cancer and rare diseases because of Brexit, experts have warned.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,1204,2342,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,3912,211,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-40804","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-cancer","11":"tag-disease","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-european","15":"tag-european-union","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-medicine","18":"tag-nhs","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114381092745283231","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}