Treatment prices are being capped and medications are being removed from The Cancer Drugs Fund, following a significant overspend it has emerged.
By the end of the financial year, the £280m annual fund, which has been accessed by 55,000 people, looks to be £100m over budget.
As well as the removal of breast cancer drug Halaven and bowel cancer treatment Zaltrap, the only prostate cancer drug on the list, Jetvana has also been removed.
Treatment prices are being capped and medications are being removed from The Cancer Drugs Fund, following a significant overspend it has emerged.
By the end of the financial year, the £280m annual fund, which has been accessed by 55,000 people, looks to be £100m over budget.
As well as the removal of breast cancer drug Halaven and bowel cancer treatment Zaltrap, the only prostate cancer drug on the list, Jetvana has also been removed.
Currently a further 42 drugs are being re-assessed for removal while 12 alternative therapies are being evaluated.
The Cancer Drugs Fund was launched in April 2013 aiming to provide £280m a year which would give patients access to more expensive treatment options where required.
Professor Peter Clark, an oncologist and chairman of the Cancer Drugs Fund, said: "We need to get maximum value for every pound we spend.
"We can no longer sustain a position where we are funding drugs that don't offer sufficient clinical benefit when drugs that will do more for patients are coming on stream."
Eric Lowe, chief executive of Myeloma UK, told the BBC: "Our feeling is the Cancer Drugs Fund is not sustainable, it's a policy anomaly and we don't understand why the Conservatives and Labour are intent on continuing with it in some form.
"The drug companies have behaved badly with their pricing and we support the Fund going back to try to reduce costs."
