... The Government has promised a £200million cancer drug fund to pay for any medicine recommended by a consultant - even when it has not been licensed to treat a specific disease.
But the initiative will not come into force until next April, leaving patients at the mercy of NICE for nine more months.
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The Rarer Cancers Foundation said it was a scandal that so many patients will see their lives cut short when there are drugs available - and widely used in Europe and the U.S. - which could give them precious extra months.
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The drugs which have been turned down provisionally are: sorafenib for liver cancer; lapatinib and bevacizumab for breast cancer; trabectedin for ovarian cancer; erlotinib for lung cancer; ofatumumab for leukaemia; imatinib for intestinal tumours; everolimus for kidney cancer; trastuzumab for gastric cancer and mifamurtide for bone cancer
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