The U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended Merck KGaA and Pfizer Inc.'s cancer medicine Bavencio for routine use under the National Health Service to treat a rare type of skin cancer that tends to grow fast and spread quickly to other parts of the body.
Also known as NICE, the institute's appraisals govern which new medicines may be covered by the state-run NHS.
The watchdog recommended Bavencio, or avelumab, for routine NHS use in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to treat adults with metastatic merkel cell carcinoma if they have had one or more chemotherapy treatments.
Bavencio is also recommended for use in England within the Cancer Drugs Fund to treat adults with the condition if they have not received chemotherapy. Patients in Wales can get the medicine via the New Treatment Fund, which pays for all treatments recommended by NICE.
In Scotland, the use of the cancer treatment depends on the result of an assessment by the Scottish Medicines Consortium, which the companies expect in the first half of 2018.
According to NICE, England sees about 70 new cases of metastatic merkel cell carcinoma each year, with fewer than half of patients surviving more than one year and fewer than 20% surviving more than five years. It noted, however, that the actual number of cases is difficult to verify due to the rarity of the disease.
The U.K.-based institute also noted that treatment options for the disease are severely limited, but it can generally be managed at an early stage with surgery and radiotherapy.
Bavencio received marketing authorization in the 28 countries of the EU, in addition to Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland, in September 2017. It was launched in the U.K. in November 2017.
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The drug is part of a class of treatments that block the protein called PD-L1, or programmed death ligand-1, preventing tumor cells from using the protein for protection against white blood cells, such as T cells. Other therapies in the area include AstraZeneca PLC's Imfinzi and Roche Holding AG's Tecentriq.
In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration granted accelerated approvals to the drug in early 2017 to treat metastatic merkel cell carcinoma and advanced bladder cancer. Later in December, it received breakthrough therapy status from the U.S. regulator to treat advanced kidney cancer when used in combination with Pfizer's Inlyta.
The treatment has also received approval in Japan to treat merkel cell carcinoma that cannot be removed via surgery.
However, the drug failed to extend patients' lives in a phase 3 study for advanced gastric cancer. More recently, in February, Merck and Pfizer reported the results of a phase 3 study that showed that Bavencio did not significantly improve survival in patients with a certain type of lung cancer who had previously received chemotherapy.

