Tezspire looks set to be approved by NICE for severe asthma

Having won approval from the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in September last year, Astra-Zeneca’s (LSE: AZN) biologic Tezspire (tezepelumab) has now received backing from the health technology assessor.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has issued final draft guidance recommending Tezspire for use within the National Health Service (NHS) in England and Wales. The drug is intended as an add-on maintenance therapy in adult and adolescent patients, 12 years and older, with severe asthma who are inadequately controlled with high dose inhaled corticosteroids plus another medicinal product for maintenance treatment and had three or more exacerbations in the previous year, or are having maintenance oral corticosteroids. Final draft guidance is subject to appeal.

The UK pharma major notes that, owing to the complexity of severe asthma, many patients have unclear or multiple drivers of airway inflammation resulting in some patients not responding to the current standard of treatment, and being at increased risk of asthma attacks, hospitalizations, and a poor quality of life. An advancement in epithelial science has identified a pro-inflammatory cytokine or protein – thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) – implicated in multiple inflammatory pathways in asthma.