LONDON (Reuters) - Pfizer's new lung cancer
pill Xalkori is too expensive to be worth using on Britain's state
health service, the country's health cost watchdog said on Wednesday.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence
(NICE) said the drug, which works by blocking enzymes that can
stimulate tumour growth, could not be considered a cost-effective use of
National Health Service resources.
The agency's draft
guidance on the drug - which costs 4,689 pounds for a 30-day supply - is
now open for consultation.
Xalkori won conditional approval from European health
regulators last October, following a green light in the United States in
2011.
It is designed to
be used along with a companion diagnostic to test for a gene mutation
known as ALK, which occurs in about 4 percent of patients with non-small
cell lung cancer, many of them non-smokers.
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