NICE provisionally agrees the wider use of tocilizumab (RoActemra)

Taken from NRAS magazine, Winter 2011

NICE, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has provisionally agreed to the potential wider uses of tocilizumab for treating rheumatoid arthritis.  Tocilizumab is currently available to those who have already tried and had an inadequate response to one or more TNF inhibitors and where rituximab has also produced an inadequate response or there is some medical reason to avoid it or it has produced undesirable side effects. The new draft guidance provisionally recommends tocilizumab as an option for treating rheumatoid arthritis at an earlier point in the treatment pathway. This is where the disease has responded inadequately to standard disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) such as methotrexate, and is used as described for other TNF inhibitor treatments in NICE guidance TA130.  Final guidance from NICE is expected to be issued in February 2012.