NICE backs Pfizer’s drug for advanced kidney cancer
pharmafile | December 16, 2014 | News story | Sales and Marketing | NICE, Pfizer, Sutent, Votrient, Zytiga, axitinib, inlyta, xofigo
UK healthcare guidance body NICE has issued final draft guidance recommending Pfizer’s Inlyta for advanced kidney cancer.
The draft recommendation extends the use of Inlyta (axitinib) to advanced forms of the disease, when the cancer has spread inside the kidneys and may have also spread to nearby lymph glands.
If the decision is included in its final guidance, Inlyta will be available as an option for treating adults with advanced renal cell carcinoma in patients who have already failed to respond to treatment with a first line tyrosine kinase inhibitor or a cytokine.
Professor Carole Longson, director of the NICE health technology evaluation centre, says: “NICE was asked by the Department of Health to look at Inlyta for people who have already been treated with a cytokine or a drug known as a kinase inhibitor.
“This draft guidance recommends that the NHS provides Inlyta for these patients. Although this recommendation has not changed since the previous draft guidance, the updated draft includes some clarification around prescribing Inlyta.
“The independent appraisal committee carefully considered the available evidence, including the discount offered by the company that market the drug and concluded that Inlyta should be offered by the NHS.”
The healthcare guidance body has previously recommended two drugs for advanced renal cell carcinoma, Pfizer’s Sutent (sunitinib) and GSK’s Votrient (pazopanib) – both as first-line treatments.
The decision comes shortly after NICE decided to only give Bayer a partial approval for Xofigo (radium-223 dichloride) for prostate cancer. The Institute approved Xofigo for men who have previously received docetaxel for metastatic castration-resistant (hormone resistant) prostate cancer – but stopped short of recommending Xofigo in men who are not suitable for docetaxel.
NICE has previously rejected Xofigo as an alternative initial treatment to docetaxel, and in a second-line combination with Janssen’s Zytiga (abiraterone), despite it being added to England’s Cancer Drugs Fund.
Xofigo has been licensed in Europe since November last year and in the UK since January 2014 for the treatment of adults with castration-resistant prostate cancer, symptomatic bone metastases and no known visceral metastases.
Lilian Anekwe
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