Erenumab migraine drug fails to meet NICE recommendation standards

The UK National Institution for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published draft guidance confirming that it will not be recommending Aimovig (erenumab) for preventing migraine.  

An independent committee considered the cost-effectiveness of the drug, produced by Novartis, for use on people that suffer with chronic migraines, following earlier draft guidance. The treatment costs in the region of £5,000 per patient per year at its list price.

The committee were concerned that the trials for the drug excluded patients for whom all previous treatments had no therapeutic benefit. It considered this group likely to represent the patients most in need of treatment, and therefore the most clinically important subgroup.

Although Novartis provided evidence demonstrating the long-term effectiveness of erenumab, the committee highlighted this only included people with episodic migraine and did not specify how many treatments had failed prior to trialling the drug.

Therefore, the committee found this data different to the population being considered in the application.

Erenumab targets the process by which proteins cause blood vessels in the brain to swell, leading to the symptoms associated with migraines. It is administered every four weeks as a self-administered injection.

Novartis may now appeal the draft guidance.