J&J's Spra­va­to gets no love from NICE, jeop­ar­diz­ing its prospects in the UK

UK’s cost-ef­fec­tive­ness watch­dog NICE is tak­ing the same track laid out by ICER — J&J’s phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal ver­sion of the hal­lu­cino­genic anes­thet­ic ke­t­a­mine, Spra­va­to, is low val­ue for mon­ey. On Tues­day, the agency re­fused to en­dorse the ther­a­py for in­clu­sion as a re­im­bursable drug on the UK’s Na­tion­al Health Sys­tem.

Cog­nizant of the myr­i­ad of ap­proved an­ti­de­pres­sants that of­ten don’t work, EU reg­u­la­tors en­dorsed J&J’s low-dose, nasal-spray for­mu­la­tion of ke­t­a­mine last month for treat­ment-re­sis­tant de­pres­sion.

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