The Scottish Medicines Consortium has presented its latest recommendations which reveal backing for drugs including Astellas' prostate cancer drug Xtandi and Novartis' eye therapy Lucentis but no support for Pfizer's leukaemia drug Bosulif.
First up, the cost regulator has endorsed Xtandi (enzalutamide) for unrestricted use within NHS Scotland for the treatment of adult men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer whose disease has progressed on or after docetaxel therapy. The disease affects over 2,500 people in Scotland per year and around 10-20% of patients develop metastatic prostate cancer (mPC) within five years of follow-up from diagnosis.
Rob Jones of the University of Glasgow said the thumbs-up "marks a great day for Scottish patients with mPC [as] enzalutamide has demonstrated its ability to prolong life, whilst also improving the quality of life for those with this form of the disease".
Novartis was also pleased to receive the backing of the SMC for another use of Lucentis (ranibizumab) for the treatment of visual impairment due to choroidal neovascularisation secondary to pathologic myopia (myopic CNV). This means that the drug will now be available in Scotland on the NHS for eligible patients across all conditions for which it is licensed.
The regulator also accepted Eli Lilly’s Strattera (atomoxetine) for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in adults and Pfizer's Inlyta (axitinib) for the treatment of adult patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma after failure of prior treatment with the company's own Sutent (sunitinib) or a cytokine.
However the SMC did not recommend Pfizer's Bosulif (bosutinib) for Philadelphia chromosome positive chronic myelogenous leukaemia in patients previously treated with one or more tyrosine kinase inhibitors eg Novartis' Gleevec (imatinib) and Tasigna (nilotinib) or Bristol-Myers Squibb's Sprycel (dasatinib).
The SMC said that "the uncertainty about the balance of costs and benefits meant that the medicine was not considered to offer value for money".
