UK’s NICE opens door to Alimta

The UK’s cost effectiveness body, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, has given its seal of approval for the use of Eli Lilly’s Alimta and Schering-Plough’s Remicade on the National Health Service.

Specifically, the Institute has issued final guidance for the use of Alimta (pemextred) to treat malignant pleural mesothelioma, a cancer associated with asbestos exposure and mostly affecting the lungs, in patients with a World Health Organisation performance status of 0 or 1, who are considered to have advanced disease, and who are unable to undergo surgery.

Mesothelioma is an aggressive tumour that is often not diagnosed until the advanced stages, at which point patients have an average life expectancy of five months. An estimated 1,700 people in the UK are diagnosed with the illness every year, a figure that is likely to peak at more than 2,000 cases by 2015.

Initially, the Institute turned down Alimta for MPM, but two subsequent appeals, during which a number of significant factors came to light – such as the easy identification of a subgroup of patients in whom the drug has greater effectiveness, and the availability of a smaller 100mg vial to cut costs - led to a u-turn on the original decision reached in 2006.

“I am confident that we have reached the right conclusion and as a result our guidance will lead to a uniform uptake of this important new treatment for the majority of people with MPM,” commented Dr Gillian Leng, Deputy Chief Executive and Executive Lead for the guidance.

However, Lilly suffered disappointment back in August when NICE published draft guidance turning away Alimta for patients with non-small cell lung cancer, claiming that there is no evidence the drug is more cost-effective than the older treatment docetaxel.

Source - Pharma Times

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