Dive Brief:
- According to the National Institute of Care and Excellence (NICE), Lixiana (edoxaban) is a cost-effective oral anti-coagulant drug.
- Lixiana is an oral, once-daily treatment that usually only requires annual monitoring. It is used as an anticoagulant to prevent venous thromboembolism.
- Lixiana tablets are available in three different dosages and have a daily cost of about $3.25.
Dive Insight:
Warfarin is notoriously hard to take, although for more than half a century it was the go-to anticogulant. Not only does it require constant monitoring, but it has a very narrow therapeutic index and is associated with a high risk of bleeding. That being said, there are more than 20 years of documented experience with warfarin, and much less with the relatively new non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (NOACs).
However, this new class of anticoagulants has now been on the market for five years and as they gain clinical experience using NOACs, physicians are starting to rely on them. Based on the price point of Lixiana, as well as the fact that it is an effective anticoagulant that is easier to manage than warfarin, NICE has decided to add it to the National Health Service (NHS) formulary, where it will be joining two other NOACs---Pfizer's Eliquis (apixiban) and Xarelto (rivoroxaban) from Bayer/Johnson & Johnson.