Merck Sharp and Dohme’s Keytruda receives provisional NICE recommendation

Merck Sharp and Dohme's skin cancer therapy Keytruda has been provisionally recommended in draft guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

The final draft guidance from the regulator recommends that Keytruda be made available on the NHS as a treatment for some patients with advanced melanoma which is either unresectable or metastatic.

In the UK, the drug is approved as a monotherapy for the treatment of advanced melanoma in adults, a broader indication than that covered by NICE's appraisal, which looked at using the therapy in people who had already been treated with ipilimumab.

Keytruda was the first drug to be approved through the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency's Early Access to Medicine Scheme (EAMS), which provides UK patients with access to medicines that have not yet been approved.

Professor Carole Longson, NICE's Health Technology Evaluation Centre director, said: "We are pleased to be able to recommend pembrolizumab, the first EAMS drug, in final draft guidance … I am sure this will be welcome news to patients and healthcare professionals alike."