The price of a life

National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence acts as a kind of budgetary police, advising which medical treatments are a good buy; its recommendations are almost always adopted by the government.

NICE's criteria on how much should be paid per each added year of a patient's survival is a general threshold for not spending more than 30,000 pounds ($44,235) per year of life. NICE has sometimes approved treatments costing up to 48,000 pounds ($70,775) per year of life added.

NICE chairman Michael Rawlins puts it: "We have a finite pot of money."

Rawlins said that the government wouldn't be able to afford such expensive medicines if they were for more common conditions like breast cancer or heart disease, since the cost would be astronomical.

"We do need a rationing system because in a lot of cases, there just isn't the money." said Dr. Karl Sikora, medical director of Cancer Partners UK.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society said "For us, cost-effectiveness doesn't enter into the discussion. Maybe it should."

Britain spends about 76 pounds ($112) per person on cancer care each year. In comparison, both France and Germany spend more than 120 pounds ($177) per person. In the U.S., direct medical costs for cancer care are about 200 pounds ($295) per person, according to the National Institutes of Health — almost three times what Britain spends.