One lung cancer drug receives NHS England approval, while another is not

A targeted drug has been accepted for routine use on the National Health Service (NHS) in England for some adults with untreated, advanced lung cancer. But another precision drug, for the same group of patients, has been rejected due to questions over its cost-effectiveness, noted that charity Cancer Research UK.

The two drugs – Pfizer’s (NYSE: PFE) Vizimpro (dacomitinib) and AstraZeneca’s (LSE: AZN) Tagrisso (osimertinib – were each being considered as initial treatments for patients whose non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) had begun to spread to other parts of the body.

Both drugs, along with several others already used in the NHS to treat lung cancer, target growth signals fuelled by the EGFR molecule inside cells. By switching off these signals, the drugs are designed to stall cell growth.