NICE rebuffs Avastin for ovarian cancer
The U.K.'s NICE issued draft guidance recommending against the use of Avastin bevacizumab from Roche (SIX:ROG; OTCQX:RHHBY) to treat recurrent advanced ovarian cancer in combination with gemcitabine and carboplatin. The committee said there was "insufficient evidence" of Avastin's effect on overall survival (OS) in combination with chemotherapy. NICE also said that while Avastin plus chemotherapy improved median progression-free survival (PFS) by four months vs. chemotherapy alone, it was "unclear" what impact the censoring of clinical data for about 30% of patients had on PFS. Additionally, the committee said that Roche's estimate of an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of L149,050 ($234,619) per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) was likely optimistic and that the most plausible ICER "could be much higher." Comments are due Feb. 22. ...