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LONDON (Alliance News) - AstraZeneca PLC's lung cancer drug Imfinzi will be paid for by the UK National Health Service for use by eligible patients following approval by a UK regulator, it was announced on Thursday.
The UK National Institute for Health & Care Excellence, which determines which drugs will be covered by the NHS, has added Imfinzi to the Cancer Drugs Fund. This means that doctors can prescribe the drug to patients.
Imfinzi has been shown to improve survival in patients with stage three non-small cell lung cancer, with patients living on average around 2 years without disease progression compared to just 6 months without the drug.
Conditions for being eligible to receive the drug include having at least 1% of tumour cells expressing a certain protein called PD-L1 and have their disease has not progressed after platinum-based chemoradiation.
Aside from platinum-based chemoradiation, Imfinzi is the only treatment for this type of lung cancer.
Imfinzi is administered intravenously every tw weeks until the disease progresses or for up to 12 months. The dosage is 10 milligrams per kilogram of body weight with a 500 miligram vial having a list price of GBP2,466. However, AstraZeneca will provide the drug at a "confidential discounted price" to the NHS.
Meindert Boysen, director of the Centre for Health Technology Evaluation at NICE, said: "The Cancer Drugs Fund gives patients faster access to the most promising cancer treatments. We are pleased to make this exciting new option available and look forward to seeing further data on the effectiveness of durvalumab.
"After relatively few developments in the past two decades for people with this type of lung cancer, this decision will be particularly welcome to those with the condition, their families and the healthcare staff and experts working with them."
Shares in AstraZeneca were up 1.9% at 6,476.00 pence on Thursday.
