CANCER patients in the UK are being denied life-saving drugs and treatment trials are being derailed by extra costs and red tape caused by Brexit, a leaked report has warned.
The numbers of people being diagnosed with cancer are soaring due to an ageing and growing population as well as improved diagnosis initiatives.
But a 54-page report obtained by The Guardian has concluded that while patients across Europe are benefitting from a golden age of pioneering research, people in the UK are missing out thanks to rising prices and red tape sparked by the country's exit from the EU.
Brexit has “damaged the practical ability” of doctors to offer NHS patients life-saving new drugs via international clinical trials, the report states.
In some cases, the cost of importing new cancer drugs for UK patients has nearly quadrupled as a result of post-Brexit red tape.
The report says the extra rules and costs have had a “significant negative impact” on UK cancer research, creating “new barriers” that are “holding back life-saving research” for UK patients.
Officials in the Cabinet Office and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology are reportedly studying the findings of the review.
The publication cites evidence from a range of leading clinicians, scientists and researchers, and was compiled by experts from organisations including Cancer Research UK, the University of Southampton, and research consultancy Hatch.
Three areas of UK cancer research have been hit particularly hard by its departure from the EU, according to the report. They are the regulatory environment for clinical trials, the mobility of the cancer research workforce and access to research funding and collaboration.
UK patients are missing out on the expertise of the world’s top cancer scientists, while clinical trial groups and universities are struggling to attract “global talent” in cancer research to come to the UK.
The report also reveals the UK is needlessly duplicating drug testing in clinical trials involving the UK and EU, with extra checks causing potentially deadly delays.
In one case, the UK had to spend an extra £22,000 for an official to certify batches of aspirin for use in a cancer trial. The batches had already been checked in the EU.
UK researchers are finding it “more difficult” too to attract grant funding to explore new ways to save the lives of patients “due to additional bureaucracy since the UK left the EU”.
Brexit is also having a wider, damaging effect on life-saving research in the EU.
The report adds. “The exclusion of UK researchers from European cancer research activities has had, and will continue to have, negative consequences for the overall European cancer research effort.”
Mark Dayan, the Brexit programme lead at the health think tank Nuffield Trust, said the report highlighted “concrete examples” of “disruptions which many warned were inevitable from the moment that we left the EU with a relatively hard Brexit for health and research”.
The UK and EU are due to renew the trade and cooperation agreement this year and discuss a wider reset which will shape the future UK-EU relationship.
A UK Government spokesperson said: “We are strengthening our relationship with the EU on research and have been providing extensive support for researchers to help them secure funding from the £80bn Horizon Europe programme and get more vital treatments from the lab to patients.”
