NICE rejects Erbitux in colorectal cancer
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
Draft guidance from the National Institute for health and Clinical Excellencedoes not recommendMerck Serono's Erbitux (cetuximab) for the first-line treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC), suggesting that national health service patients in England and Wales will not have access to the drug. NICE has already rejected Erbitux in the second and third-line treatment of mCRC and limited its use in locally advanced squamous cell cancer of the head and neck to a small subset of patients (Scrip Online, January 24th, 2007 and February 15th, 2008).