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New epilepsy drug added to NHS treatment options
A recently licensed drug that helps control seizures in adults who have epilepsy has been recommended for use in the NHS. This comes as final guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) out today (27 July) advises that retigabine (also called Trobalt, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline) should be prescribed as an add-on treatment option if other medicines have been ineffective or produced unmanageable side effects.
Professor Ley Sander, Epilepsy Society chair of epilepsy, said: “Epilepsy Society is pleased to see NICE’s final draft guidance for the NHS. Any new treatment options, which offer hope to the third of people with epilepsy still struggling to gain seizure control, are to be welcomed.”
You can read the full press release from NICE below:
People with epilepsy often need to take a combination of drugs to control their seizures. NICE recommends retigabine as an add-on (adjunctive) treatment option for adults with partial onset seizures (with or without secondary generalisation) who have not responded well to the following drugs: carbamazepine, clobazam, gabapentin, lamotrigine, levetiracetam, oxcarbazepine, sodium valproate and topiramate.
Retigabine was licensed for use by the European Medicines Agency in March this year. Now that NICE has issued its final guidance, people with epilepsy will have another treatment option on the NHS to help control their seizures.
Professor Carole Longson, Director of the Health Technology Evaluation Centre at NICE said: “Seizures can be extremely debilitating as they can interfere with a person’s social life, employment and other daily activities. While there are a number of effective anti-epileptic drugs already widely available on the NHS, people can have different responses to them. It’s therefore very important for doctors to have a broad range of options so that they can find the right combination for their patients.
“Our final guidance sets out the circumstances where retigabine should be used as an additional option to treat partial onset seizures for adults who have epilepsy and whose previous treatments have not worked. We are very pleased to able to issue these recommendations for the NHS so soon after retigabine’s regulatory approval. We hope that this guidance will lead to even more people having greater control of the condition.”
