June 4 (Reuters) - Britain's cost-effectiveness watchdog on Thursday recommended AbbVie's "guided missile" drug Elahere for treating a hard-to-treat form of ovarian cancer.
Elahere will be available to patients under a confidential commercial agreement between AbbVie and the NHS, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) said.
The decision comes after NICE overhauled its effectiveness rating system last year as part of a wider agreement between the UK and the US aimed at securing zero tariffs on British pharmaceuticals and health technologies in exchange for increased spending on medicines and changed rating criteria.
The new system will expand access to treatments that were previously rejected due to high cost.
Critically ill patients whose cancer has stopped responding to standard chemotherapy will now be able to access Elahere through the UK National Health Service (NHS). Previously, this drug was only available through clinical trials, private treatment, or exceptional care programs.
NICE said the drug would be available to around 270 patients in the first year, with that number rising to around 420 by the third year.
The drug will initially be funded by the Cancer Drugs Fund, after which it will move to planned rollout, which will occur 90 days after the publication of the final recommendations.
Elahere is an antibody-drug conjugate designed to precisely target cancer cells while limiting damage to healthy tissue.
The drug is administered once every three weeks and has a more tolerable side effect profile than chemotherapy, NICE said.
«"This recommendation is the first in more than 20 years to offer women diagnosed with ovarian cancer an additional treatment option at a critical stage," said Victoria Clare, chief executive of Ovacome, a UK charity supporting women with ovarian cancer.
In a late-stage study of 453 patients, the drug extended survival to a median of 16.9 months and slowed disease progression to 5.6 months, compared with a 13.3-month survival gain and nearly four months of progression delay seen with chemotherapy.
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(Reporting by Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguly)