Scottish Medicines Consortium rejects Novartis’ CAR T therapy Kymriah

pharmafile | March 12, 2019 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |  Kymriah, NICE, Novartis, SMC, Scotland, UK 

Scotland’s cost effectiveness body has refused to fund Novartis’ CAR T therapy Kymriah for adult patients with lymphoma.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) said that it could not accept Kymriah as a treatment for adult patients with diffuse B cell lymphoma who have relapsed or not responded after two previous lines of treatment.

The decision follows a similar one from England and Wales cost regulator, NICE, last year. The government body rejected Kymriah as a treatment for adults with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL).

The body concluded that Novartis’ cancer immunotherapy was not cost effective for routine funding on the NHS in England and Wales or use within the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF).

Scottish authorities however made their decision “because of uncertainties in the company’s evidence around its long term benefits.”

Neverthless both NICE and the SMC have approved funding for Kymriah in its other licensed indication for lymphoblastic leukaemia in children and young adults who have not responded to previous treatment or in whom the condition has relapsed.

Louis Goss