approved several generic versions of the drug<\/a>.<\/p>\nFampridine has been available on the NHS in Wales since 2019, in Scotland since 2020 and in Northern Ireland since 2023. However, in England, a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) review, published in 2022, said the medicine was \u201cnot cost effective at the current list price\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ceri Smith, head of policy and evidence at the MS Society, told The Pharmaceutical Journal on 23 July 2026 that a reduction in the cost of fampridine was a \u201ckey trigger\u201d in NHS England recommending the drug at this time.<\/p>\n
Currently, some patients in England do have access to the drug privately, but the cost is high for the \u201clife-changing\u201d drug, which is typically between \u00a3200 and \u00a3600 per month, Smith said.<\/p>\n
Smith added: \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely transformative in terms of their ability to walk, and it has an effect beyond that for a lot of people that goes beyond its licensing in terms of impact on dexterity and fatigue. It does really support people to be able to stay in work and to function at a level that that they wouldn\u2019t be able to without the drug.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, she said that more work would be needed to build the infrastructure to enable patients to access the drug in all four UK nations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are some services that are better prepared to start prescribing fampridine than others, where it would require quite a lot more work. And our services are pretty stretched at the moment. For some areas, this will be very difficult to get set up [and clinicians] will require quite a lot of support,\u201d Smith continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that\u2019s why we\u2019re calling on commissioners to really ensure that MS services have the resources to be able to run the clinics required to prescribe fampridine.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition, she said that the recommendation via an NHS England commissioning policy rather than through NICE means \u201cthere\u2019s not a requirement on ICBs [integrated care boards] to have it on their formulary or to regularly prescribe it\u201d.<\/p>\n
The treatment will be commissioned and funded by NHS England under existing arrangements for the provision of specialised services, NHS England said, adding that as a high-cost drug, it will be reimbursed under the cost and volume process.<\/p>\n
In its clinical commissioning policy for fampridine, NHS England suggested that service provision in England may have greater capacity than other UK nations to review patients for the treatment, and therefore an estimated 5,000 people could access the treatment within the next year.<\/p>\n
Fampridine\u2019s marketing authorisation is for adult patients with MS with walking disability, which is defined as having an Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) score of 4 (ambulatory without rest for >500 meters ) to 7 (unable to walk five meters even with aid, essentially restricted to wheelchair for around 12 hours a day).<\/p>\n
The clinical commissioning policy highlighted that trial results have revealed that the medication will be effective in around 43% of MS patients with walking impairment.<\/p>\n
However, in the past year, a higher proportion than this have remained on the treatment in Wales, suggesting that more patients in England might benefit too, it added.<\/p>\n
NICE recommends<\/a> that the treatment should be avoided in patients with a history of renal failure or epilepsy, or who take cimetidine (Tagamet; Rosemont Pharmaceuticals) or dolutegravir (Tivicay; ViiV Healthcare), which can both increase the concentration of fampridine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adults with multiple sclerosis (MS) and associated walking impairment in England are now eligible for NHS treatment with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[103,61,60,371],"class_list":["post-573551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}