Around 200 patients a year will benefit from consolidating the routine use of two marketed drugs for NHS patients with rare blood cancers.
Novartis’ Tafinlar (dabrafenib) and Takeda’s Adcetris (brentuximab vedotin) plus bendamustine will offer an additional therapeutic option to patients when other therapies have not worked.
While the drugs are not entirely new to the NHS, the new approvals allow them to be routinely utilised for rare blood cancers.
In the UK, Tafinlar was first approved for the treatment of a certain type of melanoma in 2013, while Adcetris was approved a year earlier for some types of lymphomas. The drugs have been available and routinely funded on the NHS in these respective indications for many years.
Tafinlar is now available off-label as a routine commissioning treatment option for BRAFV600E mutation-positive histiocytic neoplasms where standard of care has failed. Histiocytic neoplasms are rare and potentially deadly blood cancers. Without effective treatment, around one in 10 children with high-risk disease die within a year of diagnosis, while seven in 10 adults die within five years.
Novartis’ oral, targeted cancer therapy acts by blocking growth signals of cancer cells. Unlike chemotherapy, its outpatient-based nature also means patients can receive treatment at home rather than at the hospital, where close supervision and admission are required.
Meanwhile, the combination of Adcetris (jointly developed by Takeda and Pfizer) and bendamustine will benefit children as young as eight with Hodgkin lymphoma that has returned or not responded to initial treatment.
NHS national clinical director for cancer, Professor Peter Johnson, said: “This is a landmark moment for people with histiocytic neoplasms and Hodgkin lymphoma, giving them access to new treatment options they might not otherwise have had.
“For people living with the uncertainty of these rare cancers, these innovative therapies could offer something that can be hard to find – renewed hope – while allowing many patients to take their treatment at home instead of in hospital, so they can spend more time living their lives.”
Rare blood cancer patient access to the two therapies aligns with the UK Government’s National Cancer Plan for England. Published in February 2026, the strategy aims for three-in-four diagnosed cancer patients to be cancer-free or living well after five years. Over the next decade, the government will implement a range of strategies – one of which is improving access to new treatments and enhancing support for patients during treatment.
The medicines’ rollout is via NHS England’s Clinical Priorities Advisory Group (CPAG), which assesses dozens of specialist medicines, medical devices and treatments each year, according to their benefit for patients, clinical effectiveness, and value for money. Unlike NICE, this committee prioritises specialised commissioning policies, often for rare diseases and off-label uses of existing medicines.
According to NHS England, CPAG’s experts noted how the discovery of genetic drivers of cancers in patients means targeted therapies have become an additional treatment option. This offers more personalised care with fewer side effects, NHS England added.
Lesley Coombs, a 69-year-old woman in the UK, received Tafinlar four years ago through a compassionate access programme offered by Novartis. While chemotherapy had treated her lymphoma, histiocytosis remained. She then started Tafinlar that led to remission.
Coombs stated: “I started [the drug] 10 days before my planned radiotherapy, but within three days of starting the drug the tumour had rapidly started to shrink. My family and I were amazed – the radiotherapy was put on hold and to this day I continue to be in remission. Thanks to the drug I have been able to continue living a very active lifestyle.”
