AstraZeneca’s breast cancer drug Faslodex has been rejected for use on Britain’s state health service, dealing a blow to a product that has been on the market in Europe since 2004. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) said on Thursday in its final appraisal that it had not found any evidence Faslodex worked significantly better than existing treatments, so its widespread use would not be a good use of resources. AstraZeneca had estimated Faslodex, an injection, could extend life when compared to using the company’s own aromatase inhibitor tablets Arimidex or Novartis’s Femara, but NICE found this to be “considerably uncertain”.
