£80M DRUGS FUND BOOST FOR PATIENTS
Iron Maiden star Bruce is cancer-free Extra cash to help Scots with rare illnesses get drugs to transform lives Zero is magic number
IRON Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson was told yesterday that he has beaten cancer.
Bruce, 56, revealed shortly before Christmas that he was being treated for a tumour on his tongue.
He had seven weeks of chemotherapy and radiotherapy and the band’s website confirmed yesterday that doctors had given him the all-clear.
Bruce thanked Maiden’s fans for their support. The band’s manager Rod Smallwood said a new album would be out this year and Bruce would be back on stage in 2016. SCOTS fighting rare illnesses got a major boost yesterday when ministers doubled the size of a fund to buy them vital drugs.
Health Secretary Shona Robison revealed that the New Medicines Fund was being increased to £80million for 2015-16.
She made the announcement as she met cystic fibrosis patients at Edinburgh’s Western General Hospital. The fund pays for some CF patients to be given a drug called Kalydeco, which can transform the lives of people with a variant of the illness caused by the so-called Celtic Gene.
The Cystic Fibrosis Trust said Robison’s announcement would reassure patients on Kalydeco that they will keep getting it.
It also raises hopes for patients with the most common CF variant, caused by a gene known as DF508.
Doctors are hoping to help them by combining Kalydeco with another drug, Lumacaftor. The increased New Medicines Fund could help fund the treatment.
The fund pays for “orphan drugs” – medicines specifically to treat rare conditions. These drugs are rejected for routine use in the NHS, often because of cost.
Drugs for patients nearing the end of their lives are also paid for by the fund. It was set up for all rare illnesses.
Robison said she was delighted to announce the increase. The fund was already helping 1000 patients and that number would now increase.
Yvonne Hughes of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, who has the DF508 variant of the disease, said: “People were uncertain about future funding but this will set their minds at rest.”
And patient Lawrie Reynolds, 29, who has been on Kalydeco for a year, said: “I’ve definitely noticed the difference. This announcement is great news.”
Lawrie said Kalydeco could have given his sister Hayley, who died from CF aged 20, a longer life. Chinese police shot a lion dead on Sunday after it killed its keeper at the Taian Tiger Mountain Park and was loose in the zoo for more than an hour. SCOTS actress Ashley Jensen adds her voice to a campaign to reduce the number of needless child deaths to zero by 2030.
The Annan-born star of How to Train Your Dragon joined Helena Bonham Carter, Myleene Klass and other celebs to support Save the Children’s Countdown to Zero initiative. It aims to put pressure on governments to make the commitments needed to save youngsters around the world from preventable deaths.
At the moment, 17,000 kids a day die from treatable diseases like malaria or pneumonia or from lack of basic medical care.
Killer lion shot