Watchdog rules against Pfizer inhaled insulin

[Angel]

Pfizer's inhaled insulin product Exubera should not be prescribed on Britain's state health service, the country's cost-effectiveness watchdog, NICE, has recommended.

Pfizer, the world's biggest pharmaceuticals group, said on Tuesday the preliminary opinion from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) was "perverse and short-sighted".

Exubera won marketing approval in both Europe and the United States in January as a treatment for patients with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.
But NICE -- whose function is to assess whether treatments are cost effective for the National Health Service -- said it did not offer sufficient benefits over conventional insulin injections to be worth the money.

It estimated the cost of using Exubera to be 1,102 pounds per patient a year.

That might be justified for people with severe fear of injections, NICE's appraisal committee said, but there was no way of identifying those who would gain sufficient benefit for the technology to be cost effective.

The preliminary decision -- which could be revised following consultation -- is the latest controversial ruling from NICE, which has angered drug makers and patient groups in the past by limiting access to Alzheimer's drugs on the state health service.

Pfizer said the Exubera ruling would deprive patients of the first alternative to insulin injections since the 1920s.

It argues Exubera offers clinicians the opportunity to benefit patients by starting insulin much earlier, thereby cutting future costs of treating diabetes and its complications, such as heart disease, amputation, blindness and kidney failure.

Exubera is a short-acting, powder form of insulin that can be taken before meals. Industry analysts forecast sales will top $1 billion a year.