Novartis knocked back by NICE over Aimovig price

The cost-effectiveness watchdog for England and Wales has ruled that Novartis’ (NOVN: VX) anti-CGRP migraine therapy is too expensive at its current price to be provided on the National Health Service (NHS).

Final guidance published by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends against prescribing the therapy, which is approved for preventing chronic and episodic migraine in adults who have four episodes or more of migraine every month, and where at least three other preventive treatments have not worked.

Aimovig (erenumab) was the first anti-CGRP drug to gain approval in the USA and Europe and is predicted to lead this new class of therapies, but it appears that Novartis will have to drop its price to reach English patients. The product costs around £5,000 ($6,200) per patient, per year, at its list price but there was a proposed confidential discount offered after the NICE’s publication of earlier draft guidance.