UK's NICE clears Roche's MabThera as maintenance therapy for NHL

The UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has issued final guidance recommending the use of Swiss drug major Roche's MabThera (rituximab) as a maintenance therapy for patients with relapsed/refractory follicular non-Hodgkin lymphoma responding to induction therapy with chemotherapy with or without rituximab. This is an important breakthrough as it represents a new treatment approach that can allow patients with this potentially fatal disease to manage it as a chronic condition and live for an average of over four years before the disease returns, the firm noted.