Life Extending Breast Cancer Drug Approved

Life-extending drug for women with aggressive breast cancer has been approved.

15:48 07 November 2016

Eribulin, the life-extending drug for breast cancer patients, have received a European safety license more than five years ago. However, it is not until now that it has been approved for routine NHS use. NICE, the drugs rationing watchdog, revised its guidance last night with officials accepting the evidence that the drug extends the life expectancy of breast cancer patients by an average of three months. It previously said that the drug, which costs £10,830 for an average six months of treatment, was not cost-effective. 

 

The drug will be made immediately available to all women with advanced breast cancer for whom at least two different chemotherapy drugs have failed. 

 

Professor Carole Longson, director of the centre for health technology evaluation at NICE, said last night: ‘The life expectancy of people for whom eribulin is licensed is short, and quality of life is very important.

 

‘We are therefore pleased to be able to provisionally recommend eribulin as an additional option for people with advanced breast cancer.

 

‘When we first looked at eribulin in 2012 there wasn’t enough evidence of its clinical effectiveness compared with current standard treatments to be able to recommend it as a cost effective use of NHS resources.

 

‘For this appraisal we’ve been able to consider updated results from the trial used in the original guidance that show women taking eribulin lived on average almost three months longer compared with women taking other treatments.’