CMS PROPOSES TO COVER MERCK'S ANTI-EMETIC EMEND AS PART B DRUG

Merck's anti-emetic Emend will qualify for coverage as a Medicare Part B drug under a proposed coverage decision recently issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

The CMS proposal calls for Emend (aprepitant) to be covered when used as part of a three-drug regimen to treat chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) in patients who do not respond to the standard drugs used to treat these symptoms, which often occur with some anticancer chemotherapeutic drugs.

The three-drug regimen would include Emend combined with two standard anti-emetic drugs -- a 5-HT3 antagonist and dexamethasone.

The proposal is somewhat unique because CMS rarely covers drugs that are self-administered by the patient, such as oral medications. However, the Medicare Modernization Act provides coverage for oral drugs used to treat CINV if the oral anti-emetic drug functions as a replacement for the intravenous drugs that would have otherwise been administered. In this case, the combination of the three drugs will replace the intravenous drugs that would otherwise be necessary, CMS said.

Public comments can be submitted on the draft coverage proposal at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/mcd/index_list.asp?list_type=nca (http://www.cms.hhs.gov/mcd/index_list.asp?list_type=nca).