| GSK breast cancer drug 'too costly' for NHS | Posted on 10/07/2008 in Pharmaceutical Company Product News GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK's) oral cancer drug Tyverb does not meet the threshold for clinical and cost effectiveness, according to the UK government's medicines advisory body.
Earlier this week, the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) said it would not recommend Tyverb for advanced breast cancer, the Financial Times reported.
The rejection is the latest in a series of decisions made by NICE which have gone against high-priced treatments for the lat stages of cancer.
GSK could potentially launch an appeal against the decision.
Recently NICE announced it could not recommend NHS reimbursement of drugs by Pfizer and Merck-Serono after the companies failed to produce supplementary data.
GSK had attempted to come to an agreement on a risk sharing strategy which would have meant the Department of Health would only have paid for Tyverb as a proportion of those patients estimated to have significantly benefited.
Nice claimed the medical benefits of the drug were outweighed by its cost, which is approximately 21,000 pounds per patient per year.
GSK commented: "Recent evaluations of other cancer medicines have shown that demonstrating cost effectiveness in end-stage cancers is particularly challenging.
"Tyverb offers hope of slowing the disease to patients with advanced breast cancer who have few treatment options left."
Last month, GSK received marketing authorisation in the EU for Tyverb.Other news stories from 10/07/2008
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