Latest Scottish Medicines Consortium decisions

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has accepted the following drugs for use in NHS Scotland:

• Eslicarbazepine acetate (Zebinix), as adjunctive therapy for adults with partial-onset seizures. Use is restricted to patients with highly refractory epilepsy who have been heavily pre-treated and remain uncontrolled on existing antiepileptic drugs.
• Oxycodone hydrochloride 50mg/ml injection (OxyNorm), for the treatment of moderate to severe cancer pain. Use is restricted to patients who have difficulty tolerating morphine or diamorphine and who require a high dose of oxycodone delivered via syringe pump which would necessitate the daily preparation of an additional syringe pump if oxycodone 10mg/ml were used.

Following full submissions to SMC, the following drugs were rejected for use in NHS Scotland:

• Eculizumab (Soliris), for paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria
• Glucosamine sulphate (Glusartel), for mild to moderate osteoarthritis of the knee
• Sevelamer carbonate (Renvela), for hyperphosphataemia in adults on dialysis
• Trabectedin (Yondelis), for advanced soft tissue sarcoma in patients who are unresponsive to or unsuitable for anthracyclines and ifosfamide

In the absence of submissions to the SMC, the following drugs cannot be recommended for use in NHS Scotland:

• Amifampridine (Firdapse), for Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome
• Canakinumab (Ilaris), for cryopyrin-associated periodic syndromes
• Docetaxel (Taxotere), for the adjuvant treatment of operable node-negative breast cancer