Pfizer drug wins U.K. support following overhaul of Cancer Fund

Bloomberg

7 July 2016 - Drug costs $58,000 a year before discounts from Pfizer.

Pfizer Inc.’s leukaemia drug Bosulif won the backing of a key health authority in the U.K. after the nation’s public health system overhauled how it pays for cancer treatments and the pharmaceutical company offered discounts.

The U.S. drug maker is providing undisclosed concessions on the current price of 45,000 pounds ($58,000) a year for treating each patient, NICE said Thursday in a statement. NICE, which assesses the cost and effectiveness of medicines, said it would recommend that the U.K.’s National Health Service begin using the drug for people with chronic myeloid leukemia.

The endorsement makes Bosulif -- which has been available in the U.K. through the government’s Cancer Drug Fund after it was rejected by NICE in 2013 for broader use -- the first treatment to be reconsidered for coverage by the NHS. The cancer fund’s mushrooming budget was capped at 340 million pounds for the current year in the overhaul, and NICE was authorized to determine which drugs would be covered. Pfizer said the reforms don’t go far enough.

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Michael Wonder

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Michael Wonder

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Cancer , Outcome , England , Medicine