The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) evidence reviewers considered a biosimilar discount of 70% to 90% off the reference trastuzumab’s price at a 90% to a 100% market share, and the Cancer Drugs Fund provided the committee with confidential information on the weighted average price and market share for available biosimilar trastuzumab products.
Roche’s pertuzumab (Perjeta), a monoclonal antibody that is approved for use in combination with trastuzumab and docetaxel for the treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer, has once again been rejected by the United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for adjuvant treatment of patients whose breast cancer has a high risk of recurrence.
While NICE, the United Kingdom’s health technology assessment body, had previously rejected the drug for routine National Health Service (NHS) use in this setting in June 2018, it agreed to reevaluate its decision in light of the cost savings that biosimilar versions of trastuzumab could provide to the overall treatment regimen.
Click here to read more about biosimilar trastuzumab in the United Kingdom.
Roche sells pertuzumab at a price of £2395 (approximately $3056) per 420-mg vial, and its brand-name trastuzumab, Herceptin, at a list price of £407.40 (approximately $520) per 150-mg vial. Roche also provides an undisclosed discount on pertuzumab to the NHS.
Biosimilar trastuzumab, which is now available in the United Kingdom, would reduce the overall cost of treatment, noted NICE, but even with deep discounts, it found that pertuzumab was unlikely to be cost-effective, largely because clinical trial results from the APHINITY trial “suggest that pertuzumab offers only a small incremental treatment benefit compared with placebo.”
NICE’s evidence reviewers considered a biosimilar discount of 70% to 90% off the reference trastuzumab’s price at a 90% to a 100% market share, and the Cancer Drugs Fund provided the committee with confidential information on the weighted average price and market share for available biosimilar trastuzumab products.
The reviewers determined that, after the weighted average biosimilar discount, the base-case incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was £39,939 per quality-adjusted life year gained.
“Although the availability of biosimilar trastuzumab will greatly reduce the overall cost of the adjuvant pertuzumab regimen,” wrote NICE in its evaluation, the ICER “still does not fall within the range usually considered to be a cost-effective use of NHS resources.”
Once guidance is finalized, NICE will consider review of its position on pertuzumab in this setting after 3 years.
Switching From Avastin to Bevacizumab-bvzr in CRC, NSCLC Can Reduce Medicare Costs
May 10th 2025Monthly savings from fully converting Medicare patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC) and non-squamous metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) from reference bevacizumab to bevacizumab-bvzr could fund 13,887 and 8,959 additional patient-months of treatment, respectively, according to a cost-effectiveness study.
Escaping the Void: All Things Biosimilars With Craig & G
May 4th 2025To close out the Festival of Biologics, Craig Burton and Giuseppe Randazzo from the Association for Accessible Medicines and the Biosimilars Council tackle the current biosimilar landscape and how the industry can emerge from the "biosimilar void."
Targeted Reimbursement Encourages Oncology Biosimilar Use
May 7th 2025Incentivizing physicians with modest financial bonuses may seem like a small step, but in Japan’s outpatient oncology setting, it helped push trastuzumab biosimilars toward broader adoption, demonstrating how even limited reimbursement reforms can reshape prescribing behavior under the right conditions.
How AI Can Help Address Cost-Related Nonadherence to Biologic, Biosimilar Treatment
March 9th 2025Despite saving billions, biosimilars still account for only a small share of the biologics market—what's standing in the way of broader adoption and how can artificial intelligence (AI) help change that?
Samsung Bioepis Report Signals Turning Point for US Biosimilars
May 1st 2025A wave of biosimilar approvals, aggressive pricing strategies, and a regulatory sea change are setting the stage for unprecedented momentum in the US biologics market, with 2025 already proving to be a landmark year in reshaping cost, access, and innovation across therapeutic areas.