Spanish Health agrees to finance revolutionary cystic fibrosis drug

Spanish Health agrees to finance revolutionary cystic fibrosis drug

Spain’s National Health System, Sanidad, has reached an agreement with Vertex, the American biopharmaceutical company based in Boston, Massachusetts, over the price of its revolutionary new drug, Kaftrio, that helps treat cystic fibrosis.

Kaftrio, whose active ingredients are ivacaftor, tezacaftor, and elexacaftor, has been included by the National Health System after the agreement reached by consensus in the Interministerial Commission on Drug Prices held last October.

In addition, the Ministry highlighted that this triple therapy will finally be financed in a combined administration regimen. The ivacaftor 150 mg tablets are suitable for the treatment of cystic fibrosis in patients 12 years of age or older. They contain at least one F508del mutation in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene.

This is included in the April 2021 extension of the indication initially authorised by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). With this action, Spain joins European Union member states including France, Austria, the Czech Republic, Italy, United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Slovenia, that finance this treatment, after the approval of the drug by the EMA.

Health hopes that the benefits of this treatment will make it possible for patients affected by cystic fibrosis to improve both their quality and life expectancy, as reported by 20minutos.es.

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