NICE poised to reject Novartis’ Afinitor
pharmafile | July 8, 2010 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Afinitor, NICE, Novartis
Novartis’ kidney cancer drug Afinitor does not offer enough benefit to patients to justify its cost, according to draft guidance from NICE.
The UK cost-effectiveness body was assessing Afinitor as a second line treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), after the failure of Pfizer’s Sutent.
Commenting on the draft recommendations, Sir Andrew Dillon, chief executive at NICE said: “A diagnosis of renal cancer is devastating for patients and those who care for them and we are disappointed not to be able to recommend everolimus as a second line treatment option.
“However, we to have ensure that the money available to the NHS is used to best effect, particularly when NHS funds, like the rest of the public sector, is under considerable financial pressure.”
Afinitor works by specifically blocking the activity of mTOR, an intracellular regulator important in tumor progression. Unlike other therapies that primarily inhibit tumor angiogenesis, Afinitor targets both tumor cells and blood vessel cells.
The RCC market is a crowded one and, of the treatments assessed by NICE so far only Pfizer’s Sutent has been passed. Pfizer’s Torisel, Roche’s Avastin, Bayer’s Nexavar and GSK’s Votrient are all awaiting the watchdog’s judgement.
In sales terms Votrient was recently tipped as a successor to Sutent by analysts, who predicted that GSK will corner the market with the treatment by 2019. Votrient is currently being assessed by NICE under its Single Technology Appraisal (STA) process and guidance is expected later this year.
Meanwhile, NICE’s draft guidance for Afinitor is now with consultees, who have the opportunity to appeal against it before the watchdog issues its final guidance to the NHS.
Brett Wells
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