Posted by Michael Wonder on 03 Oct 2019
NICE looks to company to ensure a new treatment for advanced breast cancer with significant unmet need is cost-effective
3 October 2019 - Draft guidance published today by NICE does not recommend atezolizumab (also called Tecentriq and made by Roche) for treating people with a type of breast cancer called triple A breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body and who can’t have surgery to remove it.
Given by injection every 2 weeks with nab-paclitaxel, a type of chemotherapy, atezolizumab works by blocking the activity of a protein called PD-L1 which is produced in larger amounts on cancerous cells than normal cells. By blocking PD-L1 it helps the person’s own immune cells to attack the cancer.
Atezolizumab, is the first immunotherapy that specifically targets triple negative breast cancer whose tumours have PD-L1 expression of 1% or more. It is given to people who have not had chemotherapy for metastatic disease.
