UK's NICE Rejects Bayer's Appeal For Nexavar; Says Costs Too High
May 25 2010 - 8:30PM
Dow Jones News
Rejecting an appeal by Bayer AG (BAYN.XE), the U.K.'s healthcare
cost-effectiveness watchdog Wednesday confirmed that Britain's
state health system shouldn't pay for the German company's
liver-cancer drug Nexavar, "because its high cost could not be
justified by its marginal benefit."
Nexavar, also known by the generic name sorafenib, is made by
Bayer and Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ONXX).
Bayer had appealed an earlier decision made by the National
Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence, or NICE, last year
after the regulator rejected Nexavar in a preliminary review.
Bayer then offered to provide every fourth pack for free, but
that concession didn't satisfy NICE. Drug companies negotiating
with NICE sometimes offer free products instead of lowering their
price, because they fear a concession on price would lead other
countries to demand lower prices, too.
The independent body was considering Nexavar to treat advanced
hepatocellular carcinoma, or HCC, in patients who are unable to
have surgery or other treatments. Normal life expectancy for these
patients is less than 24 months.
Nice said trial evidence it saw "showed that sorafenib increases
survival by an average further 2.8 months, but at a cost of
GBP27,000 per patient. Half of the patients who gained some benefit
received less than this amount of additional life."
Andrew Dillon, chief executive of NICE said: "We were
disappointed not to have been able to recommend the use of
sorafenib, but after carefully considering all the evidence,
including the proposed patient access scheme in which the
manufacturer offered to provide every fourth pack free, sorafenib
does not provide enough benefit to patients to justify its high
cost."
Noting that the regulator has changed its approach to appraising
high cost treatments, which can potentially extend life for
terminally ill patients, Dilllion said: "We looked at sorafenib in
just the same way but the price is simply too high to justify using
NHS [National Health Service] money which could be spent on better
value, more effective cancer treatments."
Web site: http://guidance.nice.org.uk/
-By Sten Stovall, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 207 842 9292;
sten.stovall@dowjones.com
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