{"id":774403,"date":"2026-09-18T06:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T06:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/774403\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T06:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T06:02:11","slug":"new-nhs-cancer-drug-enhertu-is-bittersweet-for-crawley-widower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/774403\/","title":{"rendered":"New NHS cancer drug Enhertu is ‘bittersweet’ for Crawley widower"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man who lost his wife to breast cancer has described the drug which could have extended her life finally being made available on the NHS in England as “bittersweet”.<\/p>\n

Fionnuala Quinlan-Bennett, a primary school teacher from Crawley, West Sussex, died in June aged 32 after being told the disease had spread to her bones and liver. <\/p>\n

Until this week, Enhertu – a treatment said to give patients additional months or even years<\/a> – had been deemed too expensive by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). <\/p>\n

Fionnuala’s husband, Nathan Bennett, said he was “extremely happy for all other women who’ll be able to use it moving forward”.<\/p>\n

He admitted that hearing on Thursday that Enhertu had been made available made him “very emotional”.<\/p>\n

“Fionnuala campaigned for this drug during her illness, although she knew it would never be an option for her – that’s heartbreaking,” he said.<\/p>\n

Nathan said that “extra time for dog walks, birthdays, seeing your parents grow old, your friends flourish and their children grow up” would have been “so, so important”.<\/p>\n

However, he added: “I think there’s something really positive in this news for both Fionnuala and for us.”<\/p>\n

Enhertu is a combination of a targeted therapy drug called a monoclonal antibody and a chemotherapy drug called deruxtecan, according to Macmillan Cancer Support.<\/p>\n

Doctors in Northern Ireland can also now prescribe it, in advance of the formal endorsement process, with Wales expected to follow shortly.<\/p>\n

Women in Scotland have had access to Enhertu on the NHS since 2023, and it is available in 26 other European countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who lost his wife to breast cancer has described the drug which could have extended her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":774404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-774403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}