Posted by Michael Wonder on 17 Nov 2016
Price discount helps give green light for breast cancer drug pertuzumab
17 November 2016 - NICE approves the third breast cancer drug is as many weeks as pertuzumab is recommended to shrink tumours in some people with breast cancer so surgery can take place.
The recommendation follows a discount to the price of pertuzumab (also called Perjeta and made by Roche Products) agreed with the company. Approximately 1400 people will now be eligible for treatment with the drug in England and Wales each year.
The draft guidance looks at pertuzumab in combination with trastuzumab (Herceptin) and docetaxel (a type of chemotherapy) to treat HER2-positive breast cancer that is locally advanced, inflammatory, or early-stage and at high risk of coming back.
The committee accepted that there was evidence that adding pertuzumab to trastuzumab and chemotherapy was more successful at getting rid of cancer in the breast and lymph nodes before surgery.
