NICE gives green light to pembrolizumab for advanced skin cancer

7 Oct 2015 02:00 PM

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has today (Wednesday 7 October) said yes to pembrolizumab for treating advanced skin cancer after treatment with ipilimumab in final guidance.

NICE recommends that the drug pembrolizumab (also called Keytruda and manufactured by Merck, Sharp & Dohme) is made available on the NHS as a treatment for some patients with advanced melanoma which is either unresectable (when the full tumour cannot be removed) or metastatic (the cancer has spread to other parts of the body).  Pembrolizumab has a marketing authorisation in the UK as monotherapy ‘for the treatment of advanced (unresectable or metastatic) melanoma in adults’. This is broader than the indication covered by this appraisal which looked at using pembrolizumab in people who had already had ipilimumab.

Pembrolizumab is recommended for the indication covered by the company evidence submission, that is:

Pembrolizumab was the first drug to be approved through the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency’s Early Access to Medicine Scheme (EAMS). The scheme aims to give patients with life threatening or seriously debilitating conditions access to medicines that do not yet have a marketing authorisation when there is a clear unmet medical need.

Professor Carole Longson, NICE Health Technology Evaluation Centre Director said: “We are pleased to be able to recommend pembrolizumab, the first EAMS drug, in final guidance.  There were over 13,000 people diagnosed with malignant melanoma in the UK in 2011, and melanoma accounts for more deaths than all other skin cancers combinedi. This will be welcome news to patients and healthcare professionals alike.”

Life Sciences Minister George Freeman MP said:

“This is good news for the thousands of patients diagnosed with malignant melanoma every year, who can now be treated with this life-enhancing medicine.

“This has been a triumph for early access, but this Government wants to go further, which is why we set up the independent Accelerated Access Review which is looking at how we can reduce the time, cost, and risk of drug development, develop a new range of flexible reimbursement models and look at barriers to roll-out of adoption across the NHS.”

For more information call the NICE press office on 0300 323 0142 or out of hours on 07775 583 813, or email pressoffice@nice.org.uk

Notes to Editors

References

About the guidance

  1. The final guidance will be available at: /guidance/ta357 from Wednesday 7 October 2015.
  2. The Committee concluded that that the most plausible ICER for pembrolizumab compared with best supportive care was likely to be less than £50,000 per QALY gained.
  3. The acquisition cost of pembrolizumab is £1315 per 50 mg vial (excluding VAT; company’s submission). The company has agreed a patient access scheme with the Department of Health. This scheme provides a simple      discount to the list price of pembrolizumab with the discount applied at the point of purchase or invoice. The level of the discount is commercial in confidence.
  4. Pembrolizumab is administered intravenously for 30 minutes at a dose of 2 mg/kg every 3 weeks until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.
  5. In March 2015, Pembrolizumab was the first drug to be approved through the Early Access to Medicine Scheme (EAMS) which fast tracks unlicensed medicines to severely ill patients. Following clinical trials, the Medicines and Health Regulatory Authority (MHRA) approved the drug designed to treat patients with advanced melanoma. This means that this drug is available to be prescribed to patients before it would normally      have been before the EAMS was established.  https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-the-early-access-to-medicines-scheme-eams   The full indication covered by the Early Access to Medicines Scientific Opinion was: “Treatment of unresectable or metastatic melanoma with progressive, persistent, or recurrent disease on or following treatment with standard of care agents including ipilimumab, and when indicated a V-raf murine sarcoma viral oncogene homolog B1 (BRAF) inhibitor or mitogen-activated protein kinase (MEK) enzyme inhibitor.” The guidance covers the whole population for which pembrolizumab was available through the EAMS.
  6. Further information on the Accelerated Access Review can be found at:https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/accelerated-access-review
  7. The Scottish Medicine’s Consortium is due to publish advice on pembrolizumab for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma who have been previously treated with ipilimumab in November 2015. https://www.scottishmedicines.org.uk/SMC_Advice/Forthcoming_Submissions/pembrolizumab_Keytruda_Treated
  8. In October 2014, NICE published guidance recommending dabrafenib as a possible treatment for treating unresectable or metastatic BRAF V600 mutation‑positive melanoma. /guidance/ta321
  9. In July 2014, NICE published guidance recommending ipilimumab as a possible treatment for adults with advanced (unresectable or metastatic) melanoma that has not been treated before. /guidance/ta319
  10. In December 2012, NICE published guidance recommending ipilimumab as a possible treatment for people with previously treated advanced (unresectable or metastatic) melanoma. /guidance/ta268
  11. NICE is currently developing guidance on pembrolizumab for treating ipilimumab naive unresectable, metastatic melanoma.  The  anticipated publication date is January 2016.  /guidance/indevelopment/gid-tag505
  12. NICE technology appraisals apply in England.  Decisions on how they apply in other UK countries are made by ministers in the Welsh Government, Scottish Government, and Northern Ireland Executive.

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