UK veto policy delays cancer funding

Date: 20/06/1996

By Tim Jones

THE UK's non-cooperation policy with the rest of the EU is holding up the development of a vital new treatment for brain cancer, according to Union officials.

London has blocked approval of the 40-million-ecu budget for the High-Flux Reactor (HFR) research programme, based at the Institute for Advanced Materials in the Netherlands.

The institute is just weeks away from starting clinical trials of its new therapy for glioma - a previously untreatable condition affecting 15,000 Europeans every year and accounting for 4&percent; of all cancer deaths.

“Any delay in the budget approval will have immediate consequences on the development of the treatment,” said an institute official. “How do you explain to patients that this therapy cannot get started due to outside political reasons?”

At recent meetings of EU ambassadors, the UK put a 'reserve' on approval of the new

1996-99 budget for the HFR, effectively delaying the release of the cash to fund the project.

The institute produces 60&percent; of all the radioisotopes used in Europe for chemotherapy and scanner diagnosis of cancers, used to treat seven million patients in the EU. These are sold on commercial terms to pharmaceutical firms and are then distributed to hospitals.

With a staff of 169 people, the institute is funded by The Hague, Paris and Bonn, but

the money is channelled through a Union programme which requires the unanimous backing of member states every four years.

The new brain cancer project, known as Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT), has been running for two years.

Glioma cannot be adequately treated at the moment because the tumours are buried deep in the brain. The new therapy, already tested on animals and tissue, involves administering the element boron into a drug which then concentrates on the cancer. When the boron is hit by neutrons, it causes a very localised fission reaction and releases energy that only kills the cancer and leaves healthy tissue unharmed.

The Commission is awaiting London's next move in the run-up to a possible meeting of research ministers next Wednesday (26 June).