On 10 February 2025, the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) issued its February 2025 decisions on medicines for reimbursement by NHS Scotland, including accepting three biologics and rejecting another.
AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi® (durvalumab) will be reimbursed for use in combination with chemotherapy for the treatment of adults with newly diagnosed extensive-stage small cell lung cancer. This follows recommendation of the combination therapy by UK’s NICE in January 2025. Regeneron and Sanofi’s Libtayo® (cemiplimab) has also been accepted for reimbursement by the SMC for the treatment of adults with recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer, where the cancer has progressed on or after chemotherapy.
AstraZeneca and MSD’s Lynparza® (olaparib) was accepted for the treatment of adults with BRCA1 or 2 mutated HER2-negative advanced breast cancer, who have already received appropriate treatments for their type of breast cancer. In December 2024, AstraZeneca and MSD announced positive results for Lynparza® in the treatment of breast cancer, demonstrating a reduced risk of death by 28%.
However, the SMC did not recommend reimbursement of Eisai and Biogen’s Leqembi® (lecanemab) for treating early-stage Alzheimer’s disease in adults who carry one or no copies of a gene called ApoE4. The committee cited uncertainties surrounding the drug’s clinical benefits and concerns about its cost-effectiveness, but has invited a resubmission addressing those uncertainties.
The rejection follows a similar decision by the UK’s NICE in August 2024, which found that the benefits of lecanemab were too small to warrant making the drug available on the NHS. On 28 January 2025, the European Commission asked the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) to re-consider the positive opinion granted to Leqembi® in November 2024 for early Alzheimer’s disease following safety information that has since become available.