NICE Endorses Lixiana for Blood Clot Treatment

The UK’s healthcare costs regulator is recommending Daiichi Sankyo’s oral anticoagulant Lixiana as a cost-effective drug that causes less disruption to patients’ lives while treating blood clots in deep veins that could lead to fatal blockages.

In draft guidance released Monday, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence says Lixiana (edoxaban tosylate) — a once-daily treatment that usually requires only an annual monitoring visit to check renal function — offers patients an affordable option. Lixiana tablets are available in three different dosages at a cost of about $3.25 a day.

The appraisal committee determined patients prefer newer oral anticoagulants like Lixiana over the standard drug treatment warfarin because frequent checks to ensure blood is clotting properly and to adjust dosage are not needed, according to Carole Longson, director of NICE’s health technology evaluation center.

Lixiana will compete on the National Health Service formulary with two other novel oral anticoagulant drugs — Pfizer’s Eliquis (apixiban) and Bayer and Johnson & Johnson’s Xarelto (rivaroxaban).

Read the draft guidance here: www.fdanews.com/7-15-NICE-Lixiana.pdf. — Jonathon Shacat