Helen Goodman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Goodman on 2016-02-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, which vaping or e-cigarette products the NHS can prescribe to help smokers quit; and what the process was for selecting those products.

Jane Ellison

Only e-cigarettes that have been granted a marketing authorisation by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) can be prescribed by the National Health Service.

By law, before a medicine can be placed on the market, it must be given a marketing authorisation (product licence) by a medicines regulator. The United Kingdom regulator is the MHRA. A specially trained panel of medicines assessors reviews all the available evidence arising out of the pre-clinical research and clinical trials. Manufacturers may also be asked to supply additional information. The MHRA also inspects the factory where the medicine is to be made, to make sure that supplies will be of a uniformly and consistently high standard.

To date one e-cigarette, e-Voke (10and 15mg electronic inhalers) has been granted a marketing authorisation by the MHRA. It is, however, not yet commercially available on the UK market to prescribe.

It is a commercial decision whether to apply to a medicines regulator for a marketing authorisation.