NHS
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has approved a new drug, dubbed MabThera, for rheumatoid arthritis to be available on the NHS.
The drug, which also goes under the generic name rituximab, targets one of the key immune system cells involved in the condition.
It will be available to patients who have failed to improve after first being given the most advanced treatment currently on the market, the anti-TNF drugs. It will be prescribed in addition to another drug, methotrexate, and will be available to those people with severe active rheumatoid arthritis who have not responded to or who are intolerant of other anti-rheumatic drugs.
Rheumatoid arthritis affects three times as many women as men and has a peak age of onset of 40 to 70 years.
