NICE recommends Novartis Cosentyx® (secukinumab) for children and young people with moderate to severe psoriasis

NICE recommends Novartis Cosentyx® (secukinumab) for children and young people with moderate to severe psoriasis

• Around 22,000 children and young people¹ in England and Wales living with moderate to severe psoriasis, a chronic skin condition that can greatly impact quality of life, now have access to Cosentyx^® (secukinumab) on the NHS after a recommendation from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)²
• Cosentyx is the first interleukin-17A (IL-17A) inhibitor to be recommended by NICE as a cost-effective treatment for moderate to severe psoriasis from childhood¹
• Psoriasis can have a significant impact on physical, psychological and social wellbeing affecting a young person’s ability to take part in everyday activities like going to school³

London, UK, 3rd September 2021 – Novartis today announced that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended Cosentyx^® (secukinumab) as an option for treating moderate to severe plaque psoriasis in people aged 6 to 17 years who have not responded to other forms of systemic treatment or for whom these options were contraindicated or not tolerated. Children and young people will now have access to this treatment option on the NHS².

Plaque psoriasis is a chronic condition that can cause flaky, itchy plaques all over a person’s body. Symptoms can be persistent with people suffering from unpredictable flare-ups that affect their physical and emotional wellbeing. Around 22,000 children and young people in the UK¹, and up to 350,000 children worldwide⁴, experience this form of psoriasis, with onset most common during adolescence³.

Doctor Anthony Bewley, Dermatologist at Barts Health, London, said, “Psoriasis is a chronic condition, which in the most severe cases causes persistent and disabling symptoms. I’ve heard from many young people how psoriasis has negatively affected them by knocking their confidence and making it difficult for them to enjoy even straight-forward things like going to school or spending time out with friends. This NICE recommendation means that young people with this form of psoriasis, where appropriate, will now have access to secukinumab, which can be an effective treatment option and can really help them manage their psoriasis symptoms.”

Once treatment is established, secukinumab is given by subcutaneous injection every four weeks; after training, it can be given by a child’s parent or carer at home. It is a monoclonal antibody that inhibits interleukin-17A (IL-17A), a molecule involved in the psoriasis inflammatory response. Secukinumab is the first IL-17A inhibitor to be recommended by NICE to treat children and young people with this condition.

“This recommendation means we can reimagine psoriasis care by giving children and young people an effective treatment option they can have at home. This will benefit patients and help ease pressure on the NHS as we build back services around the pandemic,” said Chinmay Batt, Managing Director at Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK, Ireland and Nordics. “With further global filings for childhood arthritic conditions, we are closer to our goal of expanding secukinumab to 10 indications over 10 years.”

Secukinumab is backed by sustained efficacy and safety data across psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and axial spondyloarthritis^5-8, with more than 500,000 patients treated worldwide⁹. It is approved in more than 90 countries including the UK, in Europe, US, Japan and China.