Roche cuts Tarceva price while NICE deliberate
pharmafile | October 3, 2007 | News story | |Â Â Â
Roche has announced that it is to cut the price of its lung cancer treatment Tarceva for a limited time while NICE re-appraises the drug.
The company says it is making the unprecedented move to ensure that patients aren't denied the drug by PCTs which are awaiting final NICE guidance – the widespread phenomenon known as NICE blight.
Roche says Tarceva (erlotinib) will now be available at the same price as the current second-line chemotherapy docetaxel with which it is compared, a move which it believes will help more patients receive the drug.
NICE has just agreed to make a second appraisal of the drug's cost and clinical-effectiveness, after its appeal panel decided its original ruling – which rejected the drug – hadn't taken all clinical considerations into account.
This second appraisal could take another 12 months before it is finally ready for the NHS, and Roche wants to prevent any further NICE blight second time around.
"We do not want to sit back and watch while blocks prevent patients gaining access to Tarceva, while NICE is re-evaluating its clinical and cost effectiveness," said John Melville, Roche General Manager in the UK. "We are confident that Tarceva is clinically and cost-effective. Yet, by matching the price of current second-line lung cancer chemotherapy, we have taken the issue of cost off the table, while NICE continues its deliberations."
Roche says Tarceva is a clear example of postcode prescribing, since funding for Tarceva is available for patients in Scotland but not England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It adds that patients are 15 times more likely in France and 10 times more likely in Germany to receive Tarceva than patients in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The Scottish Medicines Consortium recommended the drug in May 2006, saying Tarceva's more convenient oral formulation, more favourable adverse-effect profile and comparable overall survival rate compared to docetaxel meant it should be considered for use.
Professor Nick Thatcher, Professor of Medical Oncology, Christie Hospital Manchester commented: "I have had patients whose lives have been transformed by this treatment, who have seen an improvement in their prognosis and a reduction in some of the devastating symptoms that come with the disease. I welcome Roche's interim measure and the chance to be given the same freedom as clinicians in Scotland, to prescribe this drug to patients whom I consider eligible for treatment."
