£680 million is to be made available through the Innovative Medicines Fund and the Cancer Drugs Fund to purchase the most promising medicines and fast-track them to patients, the Department for Health and Social Care has announced.

The funds will help offer patients potentially transformative new drugs while further real-world evidence is collected to inform a final decision by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on whether the treatment is clinically and cost effective.

Examples of previous medicines which patients have accessed through managed access agreements include a treatment for children with spinal muscular atrophy and a treatment to slow the progression of a life-limiting metabolic disorder.

The reformed Cancer Drugs Fund has in the past five years provided more than 80,000 people access to drugs which might otherwise not have been available for years.

Blake Dark, NHS Commercial Medicines Director, said:

"The NHS Long Term Plan shows we are committed to adopting NICE approved treatments at the earliest opportunity and £680 million of ringfenced funding will help provide faster access to promising new drugs and ensure the NHS remains at the forefront of securing the best revolutionary treatments for patients.

Chief executive of NICE Dr Samantha Roberts said:

"I am delighted that NICE has been able to play a key role, alongside NHS England and NHS Improvement, to create this important new initiative to give people earlier and faster access to promising new innovations in treatment.

"This fund, like the Cancer Drugs Fund, will help us more quickly identify and make available transformational new treatments that will bring real benefits to thousands of people and offer high value to the NHS."