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(Response to Zyban anti-smoking drug announcement)

New anti-smoking drug to be available on the NHS

Commenting on reports [*] that the newstop-smoking drug 'Zyban' would be made available through the NHS on ordinary(publicly funded) prescriptions, Clive Bates, Director of ASH said:

"By using these anti-smoking products to deal with the addiction totobacco, you are effectively treating in advance all the various illness thatsmoking eventually causes.  This is newthinking and important in the modernisation of the NHS - if you deal with thecauses rather than wait for the consequences of smoking, you can save a lot ofmoney and avoid a lot of misery and ill health."

"Milburn seems to want to run with the prevention philosophy fortreating smoking through the NHS, and all the medical and economic evidencebacks that approach."

"Zyban works by de-sensitising the brain's nicotine receptors and hasperformed very well in trials.  For alot of smokers it offers a real hope that they will finally overcome theiraddiction to cigarettes."

"The great thing about making products like this available onprescription is that general practitioners can now involve themselves much moreclosely in their patients' efforts to quit smoking.  Every doctor knows that just about the best all round healthimprovement comes from quitting smoking."

"This is also good news for the makers of nicotine patches.  If the NHS is going to supply Zyban, then itcan hardly blacklist the nicotine products, which are also proven and highlycost effective.  We are hoping thissignals that nicotine products will also be available on the NHS"

Note: [*] This appears to have originated as a lobby briefing to selectedSunday journalists (e.g. See The Observer 11 June page 6 - Smokers get wonderdrug on the NHS). Zyban is manufactured by Glaxo-Wellcome.  It received marketing approval for the UKlast week and will be launched by Glaxo Wellcome in the week commencing 19^thJune.  The Government has yet toformally declare whether Zyban will be made available on NHS 'reimbursable'prescription (ie. publicly funded). The Government is also considering whetherto blacklist all nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products - currently onlythose products announced before 1997 are blacklisted (i.e. not publiclyfunded).  Smoking costs the NHS £1.7billion per year, and expenditure on smoking cessation is one of the mostcost-effective health interventions known - whether measured in avoided healthcare costs or life-years gained per pound spent.

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