Patients with Crohn’s disease are now likely to get National Health Service access to Takeda’s biologic Entyvio in England and Wales following a u-turn by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.
The Institute has published final draft guidance endorsing the drug as an option to treat patients with moderate to severely active Crohn’s disease if treatment with a tumour necrosis factor alpha inhibitor has failed or can’t be tolerated.
Draft guidelines published last December had rejected Entyvio’s (vedolizumab) use on grounds that the evidence was “too uncertain” and that it was unlikely to represent good value for the NHS, even taking a proposed Patient Access Scheme into account.
But new data subsequently submitted by the drugmaker has helped convince the Institute otherwise. In the latest model, the probability of Entyvio being cost effective compared with conventional non biological therapy at a maximum acceptable incremental cost effectiveness ratio of £30,000 was 61%.
“After considering further information, NICE is happy to be able to recommend vedolizumab as a treatment option for those with Crohn’s disease. We hope the recommendation will benefit tens of thousands of people who live with this debilitating condition,” noted Carole Longson, the Institute’s Health Technology Evaluation Centre Director.
