English HTA Finally Greenlights Conditional Funding for MSD’s Welireg

MSD welcomes the decision but says the drug should have gone through NICE’s Highly Specialized Technologies route that allows more flexibility regarding uncertainty around rare disease drugs.

POUND PILL — Despite positive recommendations, MSD maintains Welireg should have been subject to NICE's appraisal process for very rare disease treatments • Source: Shutterstock

NICE, the health technology assessment (HTA) body for England and Wales, has finally okayed provisional funding for MSD’s Welireg (belzutifan) through the Cancer Drugs Fund for treating tumors associated with von Hippel-Lindau disease. The decision reverses a negative decision by NICE in November 2023 and follows a positive recommendation by NICE’s Scottish counterpart, the SMC, in October 2023.

The move also comes more than three years after the rare disease treatment became the first drug to earn an...