AstraZeneca’s Daxas earns NICE recommendation for COPD

AstraZeneca's chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) drug Daxas has earned a provisional recommendation from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

The UK regulator has issued draft guidance recommending that the roflumilast therapy should be made available for routine NHS prescription. If there are no appeals, the final guideline will be published in July, with the drug to provided by the NHS within three months of that date.

NICE opted against recommending Daxas when it first reviewed the drug in 2012, as limited data meant that it was only able to support the use of the therapy among patients taking it as part of a clinical trial.

However, since then, two new trials have demonstrated that the drug can ease symptoms that are not adequately controlled with inhalers, allowing NICE to review its guidance and approve the therapy for around 122,000 eligible adults in England.

Professor Carole Longson, director of the NICE centre for health technology evaluation, said: "New evidence has meant we can now say that roflumilast should be routinely available to patients with severe COPD. This will be welcome news for many patients who have severe COPD symptoms that have been difficult to control."

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