Adam was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer and peritoneal disease in October 2006, six months after initially reporting symptoms to his GP, and after twice being told that he did not have cancer. Even after a month in hospital he had to insist that he remain in hospital and demand further investigation to obtain a diagnosis. Otherwise, he would have been discharged without diagnosis and no solution or treatment for his intolerable pains. At 29 years of age, to then be diagnosed with incurable cancer was a devastating situation for Adam, his girlfriend Jo, friends and family.

Yet, when it came to long term effective treatment, he was let down again through NICE’s decision to not approve Erbitux (his life-line) for the NHS on grounds of cost effectiveness. His oncologist at the Royal Marsden specified that Erbitux would be Adam's best line of treatment if available on the NHS and best chance after second line chemo.

Adam’s case is just one of many that highlights the plight of cancer patients unable to access life-prolonging drugs on the NHS - drugs which are readily available in the US, Europe and privately in the UK. These are denied to NHS patients under NICE guidance on grounds of cost effectiveness rather than clinical effectiveness.

Erbitux works alongside chemotherapy and in order to obtain Erbitux privately, patients have to go fully private, which means paying for their chemotherapy and associated treatment that they currently receive on the NHS as well. This puts the cost of obtaining these drugs out of reach for Adam and many others who find themselves in this awful situation.

After raising the £50,000 which was needed to start the treatment, Adam completed two sessions of Erbitux. However, in November it was clear that the cancer had continued to spread and therefore the treatment ceased.

Although Erbitux came too late for Adam, it is proven to be effective for many patients, and therefore it is important that we continue to fight to make the drug available on the NHS.