Posted by Michael Wonder on 03 Feb 2017
Breast cancer drug costs too high in relation to benefits for routine NHS funding
3 February 2017 - NICE does not recommend breast cancer drug palbociclib (Ibrance, Pfizer) because its cost is too high in relation to its potential benefits in draft guidance out for consultation.
Palbociclib is used to treat hormone receptor positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) negative locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer.
It can be used either before or after other treatments have been tried. NICE’s draft guidance looks at palbociclib for people who have not had any treatments for their locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer.
The committee found that palbociclib stalled the growth of the cancer for an extra 10 months on average. The committee concluded that although it was likely that this would result in some improvement in overall survival, this could not be quantified from clinical trials.
