U.K.'s Cancer Drugs Fund slashes therapies

NHS England dropped or restricted coverage of 16 drugs covering 25 indications from its list of therapies covered by the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) in a Roche's (SIX:ROG; OTCQX:RHHBY) Avastin bevacizumab and Velcade bortezomib from Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (Tokyo:4502), which both had three indications cut. The CDF still covers Avastin, a humanized mAb against VEGF, for five indications. The fund will only reimburse Velcade, a small molecule dipeptide boronic acid proteasome inhibitor, for patients with Velcade-naive relapsed multiple myeloma (MM).

NHS England said a national panel of oncologists, pharmacists and patient representatives conducted an assessment of evidence for each drug on clinical benefit, survival, quality of life, toxicity and safety, and level of unmet medical need. The panel also used a confidential cost scoring system to evaluate the median cost per patient. NHS England said when the high cost of a drug would lead to exclusion from the CDF, companies were given an opportunity to reduce prices. ...