NICE approves MabThera as first-line therapy for NHL

The UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the body that evaluates drugs for the National Health Service in England and Wales, says that patients with stage III/IV follicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma should have the option of first-line treatment with Roche's MabThera (rituximab) combined with chemotherapy. Specifically the guidance, which was issued in a Single Technology Appraisal, covers the use of MabThera with CVP (cyclophosphamide, vincristine and prednisolone), as maintenence therapy.

The STA is based on study results which indicate that R-CVP significantly prolongs time to disease progression (33.6 R-CVP versus 14.5 months with CVP alone). Additionally, the combination therapy has been shown to bring about a four-fold increase in time to new treatment, thereby allowing patients more space to enjoy life in remission, free from the side effects of chemotherapy.

MabThera is one of the first drugs to be assessed using the NICE's new STA process, which is designed to expedite the approval of life-saving drugs. The guidance ensures that NHS patients in England and Wales have equal access to the drug, which was approved for this indication by NICE's Scottish equivalent, the Scottish Medicines Consortium, in 2004.