NICE recommends Roche's Tarceva for NSCLC

Having received further previously requested data from Swiss drug major Roche (ROG: SIX), the UK drugs watchdog the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has today issued final draft guidance recommending the company’s Tarceva (erlotinib) as an option for the treatment of people with locally advanced or metastatic EFGR mutation-positive non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) under the National Health Service (The Pharma Letter February 17).

Commenting on the draft guidance, Carole Longson, Director of the Centre for Health Technology Evaluation at the NICE, said: “NICE has already recommended a drug called gefitinib [AstraZeneca’s Iressa] for the first-line treatment of EGFR mutation-positive NSCLC, which is now the treatment that most patients receive. There is currently no trial data available which directly compares erlotinib and gefitinib, however, clinical specialists informed the committee that the drugs are very similar and equally as effective.

Prof Longson continued: “During their initial discussion of this topic, the independent advisory committee felt that they did not have enough information to be able to make the decision to recommend it for use in the NHS as an alternative to gefitinib and therefore asked the manufacturer to provide further analyses during consultation on the first draft guidance. During this period, the manufacturer of erlotinib provided these further analyses and the committee were able to recommend erlotinib as a cost effective use of NHS recourses.

Decision welcomed by Roche

Roche says it welcomes the NICE recommendation, noting that the decision is positive news for approximately 11% of patients with NSCLC who have this specific mutation. Tarceva nearly doubles the time these patients lived without their disease progressing compared with standard chemotherapy (9.7 months compared with 5.2 months).