Posted by Michael Wonder on 04 Sep 2018
Merck gets partial thumbs-down on Keytruda in lymphoma from NICE cost-effectiveness watchdogs
4 September 2018 - NICE quibbled with Merck's methodology for demonstrating the cost effectiveness of Keytruda in treating Hodgkin lymphoma patients who have failed other treatments.
Just one week after England's NICE said no to Gilead’s CAR-T treatment Yescarta in non-Hodgkin lymphoma, it has decided that Merck’s blockbuster checkpoint inhibitor, Keytruda, is not a good treatment choice in Hodgkin lymphoma—at least not for all patients.
NICE published a guidance document on Monday suggesting that Keytruda should not be used in patients with relapsed or refractory Hodgkin lymphoma who have already been treated with both the chemotherapy drug Adcetris and an autologous stem cell transplant. It did recommend the drug for use on its Cancer Drugs Fund in patients who are not eligible for stem cell transplant.
