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 The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which
determines if medicines are worth using on England's state health
service, said on Wednesday the modest benefits and high cost of
Sativex did not justify its use.
Shares in GW fell 1.6 percent in early trading on the news.
Sativex, which is sprayed under the tongue, has been developed from
cannabis plants grown at a secret location in the English
countryside. It is sold as a prescription drug in Britain by GW's
partner, German group Bayer.
It won a UK regulatory licence five years ago but, as with other
drugs, the key determinant in how widely it will be used in the
country is the view of NICE on whether it offers good value for
money for the state health system.
In the event, a major review by the agency on improving care for
multiple sclerosis (MS) patients in a variety of ways concluded that
the drug was not worth using.
"There are better ways to improve care for people with MS,” said
Paul Cooper, a consultant neurologist at the Greater Manchester
Neuroscience Centre, who chaired the guideline group.
NICE also rejected another non-cannabis drug, Fampyra, which was
developed by Acorda Therapeutics and is sold outside the United
States by Biogen Idec.
With a typical patient taking four sprays of Sativex a day, GW
estimates the real-life daily cost of treatment with Sativex is 5.56
pounds ($8.95). For some patients the cost could be higher, since
the maximum daily limit is 12 sprays.
"We think it is a terrible shame that, because of cost-cutting
presented as science, MS patients in England are being denied a
treatment which works in many cases," a GW spokesman said. "It is
sad that it should be put out of the reach of many patients in the
very country where it was developed."
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Sativex is approved in more than 20 countries.
Interest in cannabis as a therapeutic treatment has been spurred
recently by the legalisation of recreational marijuana shops in
Colorado and Canada's move to create a federally regulated medical
marijuana industry.
GW, however, distances itself from these developments by emphasising
its ability to extract key ingredients in cannabis for medicinal
use, in the same way that pain-killing opioids have been developed
from opium.
Shares in the company hit a record high earlier this year on growing
hopes for another of its cannabis-based medicines, known as
Epidiolex, that has produced promising results in children with
hard-to-treat epilepsy.
(Editing by Mark Potter/Keith Weir)
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