Cancer Drugs Fund de-lists additional therapies

NHS England dropped or restricted coverage of 17 additional drugs covering 25 indications from its Kadcyla trastuzumab emtansine from the Genentech Inc. unit of Roche (SIX:ROG; OTCQX:RHHBY) to treat second-line metastatic breast cancer and Imbruvica ibrutinib from AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). Imbruvica had been added in December to the list of covered drugs.

Other notable cuts included Celgene Corp.'s (NASDAQ:CELG) Revlimid lenalidomide as a second-line treatment for multiple myeloma (MM) and Imnovid pomalidomide as a third-line MM treatment. The fund will continue to reimburse Revlimid for myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). ...