Bayer HealthCare’s Xarelto receives new NICE recommendation

Bayer HealthCare's anticoagulant Xarelto has received a new final draft recommendation from the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

The rivaroxaban-based therapy has been endorsed in NICE's latest guidance as a beneficial and cost-effective option for treating pulmonary embolism (PE) and preventing recurrent deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and PE after acute PE in adults.

Current therapy approaches for this condition are time-consuming and expensive, as well as being associated with a number of side effects that can impact patients' quality of life.

It is expected that final guidance on this new Xarelto indication will be issued by NICE next month.

Professor Carole Longson, NICE's Health Technology Evaluation Centre director, said: "Rivaroxaban represents a significant potential benefit for people with PE and DVT because it avoids the need for initiation with heparin and the subsequent transition to warfarin."

This comes after the firm launched a series of new Xarelto trials last month as part of the new Explorer programme, which will further extend the drug's status as the most studied oral anticoagulant in the world today.