NICE says Kadcyla too costly, but backs Ikervis

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the medicines cost watchdog for England and Wales, this morning issued two sets of final guidance, one negative and one positive.

The NICE has issued its final guidance on the use of Swiss pharma giant Roche’s (ROG: SIX) Kadcyla (trastuzumab-emtansine) as a treatment for a type of advanced breast cancer under the National Health Service.

A spokesperson for the NICE said that, “although Roche recently agreed a price discount with NHS England to allow Kadcyla to be retained on the Cancer Drugs Fund, they made no changes to the patient access scheme available for the NICE appraisal, which means it is still above the top of our specially extended range of cost effectiveness for cancer drugs.”