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UK cost agency endorses Novartis heart drug for some patients

Reuters - UK Focus

LONDON, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Novartis (LSE: 0QLR.L - news) 's big new drug hope Entresto has been recommended for use in some patients with heart failure by Britain's cost agency NICE (Milan: NICE.MI - news) , which said on Friday it believed the treatment was a cost-effective option.

Entresto has a list price of 1,194 pounds ($1,809) a year in Britain, or less than half the price of $4,560 charged by Novartis in the United States.

U.S (Other OTC: UBGXF - news) . prices for medicines are often considerably higher than those in Europe and a Novartis spokesman said European pricing was determined according to local conditions.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) said Entresto was suitable for a subset of heart failure patients whose hearts were particularly poor at pumping blood.

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The provisional recommendation was welcomed by Novartis, although the Swiss drugmaker said it was disappointed that NICE (LSE: 0FEW.L - news) planned to restrict the drug's use to only certain patients.

NICE, which decides if medicines should be used on the state health service, also gave a green light to AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN - news) 's ovarian cancer drug Lynparza, as well as Astellas Pharma (Other OTC: ALPMF - news) 's Xtandi for treating prostate cancer patients before chemotherapy. However, it turned down Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ - news) 's Zytiga for the same use in prostate cancer. ($1 = 0.6599 pounds) (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Susan Fenton)