Today the French Ministry of Health authorised wide reimbursement of Spinraza. Now every SMA patient in France will be able to receive life-saving treatment.
Our neighbour France has certainly acted in the its SMA community’s best interest by authorising Spinraza treatment on public healthare for people of all ages and irrespective of SMA severity. The drug has already ben available in France to children with SMA under a temporary authorisation scheme which was set up right after the drug’s EU approval in May 2017. Under the scheme, in order to save as many patients as possible, France has been paying the full list price for Spinraza, and will now receive the balance from the manufacturer. Countless lives have been saved by this approach.
We are thrilled for the country that helped us out in our time of need and treated our children whilst NHS England dragged their feet setting up the expanded access programme for the most severe form of SMA. But yet again, this is a huge realisation at how poorly our community is being treated here by our own NHS.
After two years of waiting for a decision when will it dawn on the NHS that France and the other 44 countries cannot be wrong.
