NICE asks Janssen to put leukemia drug forward for new Cancer Drugs Fund

1 June 2016

UK medicines cost-effectiveness watchdog the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has asked Janssen, to set out a case for including its leukemia drug Imbruvica (ibrutinib) in the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF).

This should come as a positive surprise for Janssen, a subsidiary of US health care giant Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), which earlier this year received a negative opinion from the NICE, declining to recommend use of the drug for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who are not suitable for chemo-immunotherapy.

Up to 1 in 10 adults with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) have a form of cancer with genetic changes that make their disease progress quicker and more difficult to treat. The treatment options for CLL with these genetic changes (known as 17p deletion or TP53 mutation) are very limited, according to the NICE.

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