20November
NICE approves two new drugs
NICE (The National Institute For Health and Care Excellence) has announced that two new breast cancer drugs, palbociclib (Ibrance) and ribociclib (Kisqali), are to be made available to NHS patients in England. These have been licensed as first-line treatments for post-menopausal patients with HR positive and HER2 negative locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer and work well when given with the aromatase inhibitor letrozole. Palbociclib and ribociclib are part of a new class of drugs that work by inhibiting the action of two cell division proteins, CDK 4 and CDK6. More research into the action of other proteins on cell division and spread is being carried out.
