Breast cancer drug ‘unaffordable’

A breast cancer treatment that can cost more than £90,000 per patient is not effective enough to justify the price the NHS is being asked to pay. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is currently appraising trastuzumab emtansine (Kadcyla, manufactured by Roche) as a treatment option for people with HER2-positive breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, cannot be surgically removed and has stopped responding to initial treatment. Draft guidance, published for consultation, said that despite some evidence of clinical efficacy, trastuzumab emtansine does not work well enough to justify its high cost