A drug said to be able to halve the risk of an asthma attack is to be made more widely available to patients in England. Xolair has been approved for use by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in England since 2007 but the body had threatened to withdraw permission for the treatment to be used on the grounds of cost.
While the UK still ostensibly has a national health service (NHS), devolution has given control of health care in Wales and Scotland to the devolved administrations in Cardiff and Edinburgh. Both Wales and Scotland have given the go-ahead for Xolair to be used in asthma treatment and there were fears that English patients might suffer if NICE withdrew its licence there.
However, the regulatory body has now extended Xolair’s use from the over 12s only to include 6-11-year-olds who have been diagnosed with severe persistent allergic asthma.
Asthma UK has welcomed the NICE decision to approve the drug for use across the NHS in England. The charity acknowledges that Xolair is not suitable for every asthma patient but points out that those who have benefited from the drug have reported major improvements in their quality of life and have reduced their need to take other asthma treatments that have known harmful, long-term side effects.
Xolair, which is also known by the generic name omalizumab, is prescribed for patients with severe allergic asthma and works by blocking the allergic triggers that cause an asthma attack.
Allergic asthma is the most common form of the respiratory condition in children, usually triggered by the likes of household dust, pollen, pets and other environmental factors. It is the form of asthma that is most likely to cause a patient to need hospital treatment to deal with the aftermath of an attack. Giving Xolair as a jab has been shown to reduce the severity of the symptoms of severe allergic asthma.
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