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UK price watchdog rejects J&J's prostate cancer drug in draft guidance

The U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, or NICE, did not recommend Janssen Biotech Inc.'s Zytiga for treating certain prostate cancer patients.

Janssen Biotech is a unit of Johnson & Johnson.

Zytiga, or abiraterone, in combination with androgen deprivation therapy and prednisone or prednisolone is intended to treat untreated high-risk hormone-sensitive prostate cancer patients whose disease has spread across the body. Zytiga works by blocking an enzyme called cytochrome p17, stopping the body from making testosterone.

The U.K. NICE did not recommend the therapy because Janssen's economic model did not reflect the number of treatments available to people with the disease, the regulator said in a draft guidance.

Further, the price watchdog said data comparing the effectiveness of the Zytiga combination against the current standard of care has not been fully explored — which means a cost-effectiveness estimate between the two regimens could not be derived.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the U.K. with about 47,000 cases in the country each year. High-risk prostate cancer accounts for about 15% of diagnoses.