UK’s NICE says cost of Celgene’s Abraxane is not justified by its limited benefit

UK health care cost watchdog the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has today published its Final Appraisal Determination (FAD), which recommends that Abraxane (nab-paclitaxel), from US biotech company Celgene Corp (Nasdaq: CELG), given with gemcitabine, should not be funded by the National Health Service for previously untreated metastatic pancreatic cancer, because it concluded that its benefits compared to current treatments do not justify its cost.

Abraxane is a novel formulation of paclitaxel, a chemotherapy which works by blocking cell division and promoting cell death. In this formulation, paclitaxel is attached to albumin which helps it move through the walls of blood vessels.

The NICE said it is looking at how well nab-paclitaxel, given with gemcitabine, works for people whose pancreatic cancer has spread and who have not received any other treatments. People with newly diagnosed pancreatic cancer are usually offered combination treatment FOLFIRINOX [5-fluorouracil (5-FU, generics), leucovorin (folinic acid, generics), irinotecan (Pfizer’s Camptosar/Campto, Daiichi Sankyo’s Topotecan, Yakult Honsha’s Campto, generics) and oxaliplatin (Sanofi’s Eloxatin/Eloxatine, Yakult Honsha’s Elplat, generics]. However, it can be associated with serious side effects and therefore can’t be given to everyone. Other options include gemcitabine alone or with capecitabine.