Scots first to receive breakthrough immunotherapy for lung cancer

Eligible patients in Scotland will be the first in the UK to access this life-extending treatment and will be ahead of those patients in England and Wales.

Nivolumab represents the first major treatment innovation in this type of lung cancer for almost 20 years and is the first in a new class of medicines (PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitors) for the treatment of lung cancer patients. It has an innovative mode of action that works by harnessing the ability of the immune system to fight this type of advanced lung cancer as well as advanced forms of skin and kidney cancer.

While today’s recommendation is positive news for patients in Scotland, the assessment of nivolumab by NICE is currently ongoing, meaning that the treatment remains unavailable for those patients living in England; it also remains unavailable in Wales and Northern Ireland.

“Today’s decision gives Scottish NHS patients the chance to benefit from one of the biggest treatment advances in this type of lung cancer for decades and one that has the potential to change future survival expectations,” said Johanna Mercier, General Manager of BMS UK & Ireland. “While this decision is positive news for lung cancer patients in Scotland, it will further compound the disappointment of patients in the rest of the UK, who are still waiting for access to this medicine. This demonstrates how antiquated the current UK system for reviewing new cancer medicines is and the disparity that it creates for patients and their families. We call on the UK Government to bring an end to the outdated processes that, in 2016, still mean that a person’s ability to access a cancer medicine on the NHS is determined not by their needs, but by where they live.”

In a pivotal Phase III study of 272 patients, treatment in the nivolumab arm (n=135) was shown to achieve significantly superior survival rates with 42% of patients still alive at one-year compared to 24% of those treated with docetaxel (n=137). Severe treatment-related adverse events occurred less frequently with nivolumab (out of 131 patients treated with nivolumab, 7% had grade 3-4 adverse events compared to 55% of 129 patients treated with docetaxel).

Today’s decision focuses on patients with a specific form of advanced lung cancer which has spread and is incurable. In 2014, around 5,300 people were diagnosed with all types of lung cancer in Scotland, with a majority of these patients diagnosed at an advanced stage; the prognosis for survival in these patients is poor. Approximately 10% of patients diagnosed with lung cancer in Scotland will survive 5 years or more. In 2014, approximately 4,100 people died from lung cancer,

which is almost equivalent to the amount of deaths from colorectal, breast, prostate and oesophageal cancers combined.