When a Rebuke is a signal to go ahead with business as usual, Roche speaking

Roche Rebuked by U.K. on $152,850 Breast Cancer Drug - Bloomberg: "The U.K.’s medical-cost oversight group rebuked Roche Holding AG (ROG) today for refusing a significant price cut to a breast-cancer drug that is used only for severe cases now, but may eventually be more broadly prescribed.

The medicine, Kadcyla, costs an estimated 90,831 pounds ($152,850) for the average 14 1/2-month course of treatment, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence said today. NICE said that’s too expensive to add the drug to the National Health Service’s budget for routine funding, even though it helped patients.

Breast-cancer patients in England will still be able to get Kadcyla by applying through the state-run NHS’s 200 million-pound supplementary Cancer Drugs Fund. The flap over price foreshadows a bigger fight if the medicine, one of the most expensive cancer drugs sold in England, is approved for broader use and ultimately combined with another pricey new Roche breast cancer drug, Perjeta."



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