Higher dose of Glivec not cost effective, says NICE
pharmafile | June 29, 2010 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Glivec, NICE, gastric cancer
High doses of Novartis’ Glivec for gastrointestinal cancer are not cost-effective and cannot be approved, NICE has said in draft guidance.
Glivec (imatinib) has previously been recommended by the cost-effectiveness body at a dose of 400mg per day for people with unresectable and/or metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GIST), but NICE has rejected Glivec at 600mg and 800mg doses on the grounds of cost.
Andrew Dillon, chief executive of NICE, said: “NICE already recommends imatinib at a dose of 400 mg/day for patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumours that cannot be removed by surgery. However, since the appraisal was published in October 2004, there has been no new good quality clinical and cost-effectiveness data produced on doses of 600 or 800 mg/day.
“On this basis, we cannot recommend these higher doses of imatinib for use on the NHS. NICE has already recommended Pfizer’s sunitinib (Sutent) as a treatment option for patients with unresectable or metastatic malignant gastrointestinal stromal tumours for whom treatment with 400 mg/day imatinib treatment has not worked or was not suitable.”
This will be a blow for the Swiss pharma company as Glivec was last week rejected as an adjuvant therapy for patients who have had GISTs removed but are at risk of the cancer reoccurring.
Glivec is an oral tyrosine kinase inhibitor that works by blocking signals within cancer cells and preventing a series of chemical reactions that cause the cell to grow and divide.
The drug was Novartis’ biggest selling oncology drug last year, when it made sales of $3.9 billion.
Novartis is hoping to position its leukaemia drug Tasigna as a treatment for GIST, and is conducting trials to compare its effectiveness and safety profile against that of Glivec in this area.
Ben Adams
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