The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has approved licensing for the medicine Vorasidenib. This medicine can be used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older, with grade 2 astrocytoma or oligodendroglioma with a susceptible isocitrate dehydrogenase mutation (IDH1 or IDH2).
The medicine is for patients who are not in need of immediate chemotherapy or radiotherapy following surgical intervention.
Although the drug has now been licensed, this doesn’t mean it will be immediately available to patients. The next step is for it to be appraised by the National Institute of Care Excellence (NICE).
The journey of Vorasidenib is one the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Brain Tumours (APPGBT) has been following closely. Key members of the group, including our Chair, Dame Siobhain McDonagh and APPG member Rt. Hon John McDonnell MP, met with the drug manufacturer at Westminster to see what could be done to expedite the availability of the drug to UK patients.
Dr Karen Noble, our Director of Policy, Research and Innovation at Brain Tumour Research, commented: “I’m pleased to see the MHRA taking steps to improve outcomes for brain tumour patients. Too often, we hear stories of people waiting endlessly for treatments that could improve their prognosis. I hope this licensing approval marks the beginning of faster access to effective therapies.
“I’m also encouraged to see the role our external stakeholders, through the APPGBT, have played in contributing to this milestone – once again proving the group’s value in advocating for patients and their loved ones in Parliament.
“The next move is for NICE to appraise Vorasidenib for use on the NHS – this is a process that Brain Tumour Research is fully involved with.”
You can learn more about our research on low-grade tumours at the Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence at the University of Plymouth, where scientists are studying tumorigenesis (the process by which tumours form) and beginning to unravel how, over time, low-grade tumours progress into higher grades with poorer outcomes.
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