Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Cancer "wonder drugs" - not so fast says NICE

NICE has published a draft verdict on the use of Roche's Tarceva (erlotinib) and Eli Lilly's Alimta (pemetrexed) to treat patients with non-small cell lung cancer yesterday, concluding that there is no evidence the drug is more cost-effective than the older treatment docetaxel.

In a statement, NICE's chief executive, Andrew Dillon said: "Our initial assessment of the evidence shows that neither of these drugs represents a good use of scarce NHS resources."

"The available evidence on both erlotinib and pemetrexed shows they do not provide better overall survival or progression-free survival than the other commonly used but less expensive alternative," he added.

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