Feasibility study comparing treatments in patients with GEP-NET
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A feasibility study for comparing treatments among patients with gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumours (GEP-NET)
IRAS ID
295685
Contact name
Nick Scott-Ram
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Sensyne Health Group plc
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Neuroendocrine cancers are a rare type of cancer, and when it causes tumours to grow in the digestive tract or the pancreas, it is referred to as a gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumour, or GEP-NET for short. The survival rate from these rare cancers is varied, and the probability of surviving with a GEP-NET depends on the patient’s age, and the size and type of the tumour, amongst other factors. More effective treatments are being developed to treat patients living with GEP-NETs, however these new treatments can be expensive. For a drug to be approved by the National Health Service (NHS), the drug must clearly benefit patients without incurring undue costs. However, if the drug is very expensive it may be too costly and may not be available to NHS patients. In order to make these new drugs available, pharmaceutical companies can agree with the NHS to provide the drug at a discounted price, often using a simple discount. In certain situations, some drugs may not be cost covering under such a simple discount and may require more complex discount schemes to make them available to the NHS. For example, discounts may be tied to how effective the treatment is for each patient, offering refunds if the drug does not benefit that patient. Unfortunately, using these more complex discounts can create additional work and costs for both NHS trusts and the pharmaceutical companies, which prevents the wider use of these complex discount schemes.
We propose to perform a feasibility study to assess whether data captured in national cancer registries is sufficient to identify patients living with GEP-NETs in England, and whether the data captured for these patients can be used to monitor the effect of different treatments offered to these patients. We expect our results to inform how routine registry data may be used to create future patient access schemes that allow NHS patients to receive novel cancer treatments early without increasing the cost and burden on the NHS or the pharmaceutical companies.
REC name
East of England - Cambridge South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/EE/0065
Date of REC Opinion
12 Apr 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion