OBJECTIVES: The Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) was set up in 2011 in England to enable patients to access therapies that are not routinely available on the National Health Service (NHS). In April 2013, NHS England became responsible for the management of the CDF with a single national list of drugs for prioritised funding. As the CDF has recently been extended to 2016, it is increasingly important to understand the key criteria for inclusion on the CDF-approved list, which this research aims to define. METHODS: CDF appraisal reports were sourced from the NHS England website (April 2013 – March 2014) and the date, decision, and key rationale were extracted. RESULTS: CONCLUSIONS:  A score of >=2 seems to be the key clinical threshold above which most drugs are CDF-approved, below which most are rejected. Given that 43/47 scoring drugs scored -1 for toxicity, this means that 3 points are typically required, which can come through a 4-5 month Progression Free Survival or Overall Survival gain (or a 2-3 month gain in both), but this must be versus the clinically relevant comparator.