Nice has turnabout for AstraZeneca’s Daxas

The National Institute for health and care excellence (NICE) has now released outline guidance encouraging Daxas (roflumilast) for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients which is severe disease and when symptoms continue to worsen even with other treatments, after two new trials indicated that it helped to relieve symptoms not under control with inhalers.

In the year 2012, Nice has issued directions that only supported funding for the drug in the research area because of the inadequate data available at the time, whereas draft guidelines releases prior this year also discarded it for the normal funding.

However, with the new evidence, NICE’s committee explore that AstraZeneca’s base-case estimate of EURO 24,976 per QALY achieved was a conceivable approximation of the cost effectiveness of the Daxas, hence it comes under the acceptable range.

According to the AstraZeneca, above 1 million COPD patients in England will be eligible for treatment with Daxas, an orally consumed, long-acting selective phosphodiesterase-4 enzyme inhibitor that targets cells and they believed to play a major role in the situation.

AstraZeneca completed its acquisition of Takeda's core respiratory business through a deal worth USD 575 million in May last year. This deal gave company a full ownership of the Daxas (roflumilast).