NICE has issued preliminary draft guidance not recommending sipuleucel-T for prostate cancer in people whose disease has spread, who have few symptoms and when chemotherapy would not yet have been given. 

The available evidence showed that the price the NHS is being asked to pay for the drug is too high for the benefit it may provide to patients.

Sipuleucel-T, also known as Provenge and marketed by Dendreon, is a cell-based therapy which stimulates the patient’s own immune cells to identify and attack prostate cancer cells.

A procedure called leukapheresis is used to remove white blood cells from the body, which are then mixed with a protein to create sipuleucel-T. When infused back into the body, the treatment stimulates the body’s T-cells to attack the cancer. Sipuleucel-T is the first drug for metastatic hormone-resistant prostate cancer that is not cytotoxic or based on hormone-related therapy.

Commenting on the draft guidance, Sir Andrew Dillon, NICE Chief Executive, said: “Sipuleucel-T is a new and innovative way of treating prostate cancer, using the patient’s own immune system to attack the cancer cells – but based on the evidence presented so far, it costs too much for the benefit it provides.

“It was shown to prolong overall survival compared with a placebo treatment, but there were uncertainties in the evidence about how well sipuleucel-T works compared with some other existing treatments. It was also not proven to delay the progression of the disease unlike current treatments, and this can potentially affect a person’s quality of life.

”The independent Appraisal Committee concluded that funding the treatment would not be the best use of limited NHS resources.”

For more details, go to: https://www.nice.org.uk/news/press-and-media/sipuleucel-t-cost-too-high-for-nhs-draft-guidance