Certain patients with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma living in England and Wales can now expect routine access to Takeda’s Adcetris on the NHS after NICE deemed the drug a cost-effective use of resources in some scenarios.

Final guidance published by the cost regulator says Adcetris (brentuximab vedotin) can be considered an option to treat CD30‑positive Hodgkin lymphoma in adults, but only if they have relapsed or refractory disease after autologous stem cell transplant and the company provides the drug at the price agreed with NHS England in the commercial access agreement.

NICE has also recommended funding via the CDF for adult patients with CD30+ve R/R Hodgkin lymphoma following at least two prior therapies when ASCT or multi-agent chemotherapy is not a treatment option, if the conditions of the managed access agreement are followed.

However, use of the drug in a third patient population reviewed by NICE, representing Hodgkin lymphoma patients at increased risk of disease relapse or progression after ASCT, has not been recommended.

This is because “the Committee’s preferred ICER for this population was significantly higher than the range normally considered to be cost-effective use of NHS resources, and it did not fulfil the end-of-life criteria,” the Institute said.

Adcetris is an antibody-drug conjugate attached by an enzyme-cleavable linker to a potent chemotherapeutic agent, monomethyl auristatin E, which was first granted approval in Europe back in 2012, on the back of data showing that 75 percent of patients R/R HL, post ASCT, achieved the primary endpoint of objective response rate, with 33 percent achieving a complete remission.

Earlier this year, Jonathan Pearce, chief executive of the Lymphoma Association, said the drug’s availability will be “a great relief to many Hodgkin lymphoma patients and their families who would otherwise face no or limited treatment options.”