Tarceva fails to win NICE backing
pharmafile | June 30, 2011 | News story | Sales and Marketing | NICE, Tarceva
NICE has decided not to recommend Roche’s Tarceva because of uncertainty over how long the lung cancer drug can extend survival.
Tarceva (erlotinib) was being assessed as a maintenance treatment for people with non-small-cell lung cancer who had received platinum-based chemotherapy and their disease has remained stable.
NICE said that while Roche’s data showed Tarceva could potentially extend life by 3.3 months, the Institute felt there was too much uncertainty about the amount of extra time or overall survival gain expected from the treatment
Because of this, combined with the evidence available, NICE did not consider the drug provided value for money.
NICE’s chief executive Sir Andrew Dillon said he was ‘disappointed’ not to have been able to recommend Tarceva, but added that NICE does recommend Lilly’s chemotherapy drug Alimta (pemetrexed) as a maintenance treatment for certain types of non-small-cell lung cancer.
“However, where pemetrexed was shown to offer a potential additional 5.2 months of life to patients with a specific type of lung cancer, it is uncertain how much benefit erlotinib can offer as a maintenance treatment,” he concluded, meaning NICE could not say definitively whether Tarceva would be cost-effective.
NICE also said that the drug did not meet its criteria for end-of-life treatments, saying it thought that the total population for whom Tarceva was licenced was not small enough to allow the end-of-life advice to apply.
The rejection comes despite Roche agreeing a patient access scheme with the Department of Health, in which the cost of the drug would be reduced by 14.5% (that is, to £1394.96 for a pack of 30 tablets [150 mg]).
It would normally cost £1631.53 for a pack of 30 tablets (150 mg), with Roche estimating the average cost of using the drug would be around £6,400 per patient.
Roche had challenged NICE’s earlier draft guidance that was also minded not to recommend the drug, but the Institute dismissed the appeal all points last month.
Ben Adams
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