NICE recommends Eli Lilly’s Verzenio in combination with Fulvestrant for breast cancer
pharmafile | April 2, 2019 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | CDF, Cancer, NICE, breast cancer, britain, oncology
Britain’s cost effectiveness body, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), has recommended Eli Lilly’s Verzenio (abemaciclib) in combination with Fulvestrant, for women with advanced breast cancer. The drug will be available to NHS patients through the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF).
The treatment could be an option for as many as 4,800 women who have already had endocrine treatment for hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer which has spread to other parts of the body.
Meindert Boysen, Director of the Centre for Health Technology Assessment at NICE, said: “The committee heard from patients that a treatment which could postpone or avoid the need for chemotherapy is important because chemotherapy has the potential to substantially reduce quality of life. They also highlighted the importance of people remaining in better health longer, without the disease progressing.”
“Today’s recommendation is another example of NICE and NHS England collaborating effectively to give people faster access to promising cancer treatments through the Cancer Drugs Fund.”
Verzenio won EMA approval for certain metastatic breast cancers in 2018. The drug was subsequently recommended by NICE for patients with locally advanced or metastatic forms of breast cancer, in combination with an aromatase inhibitor, in January of this year.
The drug was however approved in combination with Fulvestrant for advanced breast cancer through the cancer drugs fund due to “a lack of evidence around the overall survival benefit and around its cost-effectiveness.”
Louis Goss
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