Rheumatoid arthritis sufferers to be denied drug

By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor Published: 7:30AM GMT 03 March 2010

The National Institute for health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) does not suggest the make use of of abatacept, additionally well well known as Orencia, in patients with rheumatoid arthritis who have not responded to alternative treatments.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a on-going disease where the physique attacks the own joints causing serious suffering and disability.

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Treatments are directed at shortening the defence complement greeting in sequence to keep patients well for as prolonged as possible.

The Public Accounts Committee pronounced not long ago that patients with rheumatoid arthritis humour unnecessarily since of the length of time it take to recognize the condition and the sketchy treatments on offer.

It affects around 500,000 people of all ages and is separate to osteoarthritis, that often affects the elderly.

Around thirty per cent of patients do not reply or cannot endure the initial preference drugs, well well known as anti-TNFs. Those people can afterwards be offering rituximab, but in half of cases this does not work either.

It had been hoped that for patients who have unsuccessful on both drugs, they could be offering abatacept.

Dr Valerie Campello-Iddison, Executive Medical Director of abatacept makers Bristol-Myers Squibb, said: "We are really disappointed.

"Abatacept is proven to be clinically in outcome in patients who do not reply to an anti-TNF and we hold that it represents great worth for income for the NHS.

"Rheumatoid arthritis is a formidable disease where clinicians need options for diagnosis rather than limited choices, to capacitate them to encounter the varying needs of patients over their lifetime, as such alternative healing options should be deliberate rather than stability with potentially suboptimal treatment."

Dr Carole Longson, Director, Health Technology Evaluation Centre at NICE said: "The concentration of this estimation was to see at diagnosis options when a TNF inhibitor has not worked or when they lose their outcome The justification suggests that rituximab functions in this context and is a cost-effective diagnosis option.

"Abatacept appears to work no improved than rituximab in this context, and it is some-more expensive, so the cabinet does not c

Rituximab costs around �7,000 a year and abatacept costs around �10,000 a year per patient.