Health boards being urged to roll out new ‘wonder drug’ for those with asthma

HEALTH boards across Wales are being urged to roll out a new “wonder drug” which is claimed to have the potential to transform the lives of severe asthmatics.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended dupilumab – a medication described as a “game changer” – for use on the NHS.

Asthma is a serious long-term condition affecting 314,000 people in the Wales. About 11,000 of those live with the severest form which can’t be managed with basic asthma care. Until relatively recently the only treatment option was regular, high-dose steroid tablets which can cause osteoporosis, diabetes and severe weight gain.

Dupilumab (brand name Dupixent) is not a steroid tablet but a biologic drug given as an injection that is said to give people living with the debilitating effects of severe asthma a completely new lease of life.

While the drug was approved by the Scottish Medicines

Consortium in Scotland, it’s taken NICE three years to approve dupilumab in Wales due to initial concerns about its costeffectiveness.

However, NICE’s most recent decision now means those people living with severe asthma who are most in need and are eligible for monoclonal antibodies or “biologics” will have a wider range of treatments available to them.

Biologics are genetically engineered proteins that target specific parts of the immune system that fuel inflammation. In clinical trials, dupilumab has been shown to reduce the frequency of asthma attacks and the use of emergency steroid tablets by almost half when combined with standard inhaler treatment.

However, one of the key issues is that the current guidelines from NICE are not clear about when to refer people with severe asthma which means those most at risk are not being referred.

In response a Welsh Government spokeswoman said: “We await the results of the NICE appraisal which is currently in progress.

“In line with the requirements of Wales’ New Treatment Fund health boards are required to make all medicines recommended by NICE available within 60 days of the final appraisal being published.

“Since introducing the fund the average number of days between NICE making a recommendation and the medicine being available in Wales has fallen to just 14 days.”