Britain’s health service rolls out breast cancer prevention pill

Anastrozole, which has been used for many years as a breast cancer treatment, has today been licensed by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) as a preventive option – which it is hoped could help prevent thousands of breast cancer cases in England.

The drug, which is off-patent, has been shown in trials to reduce the incidence of the disease in post-menopausal women at increased risk of the disease by almost 50 per cent.

“Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the UK, so I’m delighted that another effective drug to help to prevent this cruel disease has now been approved,” said UK Health Minister Will Quince.

“We’ve already seen the positive effect Anastrozole can have in treating the disease when it has been detected in postmenopausal women and now we can use it to stop it developing at all in some women. This is a great example of NHS England’s innovative Medicines Repurposing Programme supporting the development of new ways for NHS patients to benefit from existing treatments,” he said.

Around 289,000 women at moderate or high risk of breast cancer could be eligible for the drug, and while not all will choose to take it, it is estimated that if 25 per cent do, around 2,000 cases of breast cancer could potentially be prevented in England, while saving the NHS around GBP 15 million in treatment costs.

“This is the first drug to be repurposed though a world-leading new programme to help us realise the full potential of existing medicines in new uses to save and improve more lives on the NHS. Thanks to this initiative, we hope that greater access to anastrozole could enable more women to take risk-reducing steps if they’d like to, helping them live without fear of breast cancer,” said NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard.