NICE recommends GSK’s Nucala for more asthma patients
pharmafile | December 18, 2020 | News story | Medical Communications | GlaxoSmithKline, NICE, asthma, mepolizumab
NICE has today published final draft guidance recommending GlaxoSmithKline’s Nucala (mepolizumab) as an add-on treatment option for severe refractory eosinophilic asthma, meaning around 8,500 more people will now be eligible for the treatment.
Severe eosinophilic asthma is a debilitating type of asthma which does not respond well enough to standard therapy. It has many distressing symptoms – including chronic sinus infections and serious asthma attacks – and affects people with higher counts of eosinophils, a type of white blood cell.
Mepolizumab was previously recommended by NICE as an option for a more restricted patient population, but this new draft guidance means the treatment will now be available to almost 40,000 people across England.
Clinical trial evidence shows that treatment with mepolizumab is at least as clinically effective as treatment with reslizumab, the treatment that has previously been available to the 8,500 patients now offered mepolizumab. The clinical effectiveness of mepolizumab is also similar to that of benralizumab, another routine treatment recommended by NICE to treat people with severe eosinophilic asthma. The drug is also a cost-effective use of NHS resources, and is therefore recommended for routine use in this patient group.
Dr Samantha Walker, Director of Research and Innovation at Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, said: “Mepolizumab is one of a group of new life-changing drugs that could transform the lives of tens of thousands of people with the severest form of asthma, whose lives can be ruined by becoming stuck in a vicious cycle of life-threatening asthma attacks, toxic steroid tablet treatment and emergency trips to hospital.
“This decision to extend the population for this treatment will mean that people eligible for biologics will have a wider range of treatments available to them. This could be a game-changer for those who have had little success with other biologic treatments.”
Darcy Jimenez
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