2023-05-03 16:42:46
“Hematology is one of the areas where AbbVie is making the most effort – we currently have approximately 300 hematology-oncology clinical trials underway for more than 20 different cancers studied. We have been developing new drugs for 10 years, and in particular hematology is the area in which we invest the most, around 15% of our turnover.Therefore, important resources that see us focused on unsatisfied health needs, and we hope to soon be able to reach other solutions similar to those of venetoclax”. This was stated by Fabrizio Greco, CEO of AbbVie, in his speech at the press conference ‘Acute myeloid leukemia: new perspectives in disease management’, promoted today in Rome to present the drug venetoclax for patients with ACL not suitable for standard intensive chemotherapy , for which Aifa has recently approved the reimbursement and the designation of full innovation, which allows its inclusion in the Fund for innovative drugs.
“We are facing a virtuous example, perhaps unique – says Greco – of a drug made available to patients about a year before European approval. Not only that. From the numbers that have been shared, this drug has allowed more than 2,000 patients with ACL to benefit from increased survival because this therapy cures, and in some cases cures, patients who in the past had a very limited life expectancy, and also allows for a longer life expectancy for about half of patients today affected by this disease”.
Already today “there are more than 800 hematologists able to use venetoclax – highlights the CEO of AbbVie – and therefore we understand how important it is to be able to have early access to drugs, especially innovative ones”. And on the recent decision of the Italian Medicines Agency to recognize venetoclax, together with reimbursement by the National Health Service, the status of innovativeness with the relative inclusion in the Fund for innovative drugs, Greco has no doubts: “It allows venetoclax to avoid the regional handbooks”. However, for the “vast majority of drugs there is another 8-10, even 12 months to wait and the wait is an unmet health need. So there is not only a need to develop a drug, but there is also the need to allow patients access to medicines”. In recent weeks “there is talk at all levels of the review of pharmaceutical governance. I hope – he concludes – that the example of venetoclax seen positively is an opportunity to improve what should be the standard and not the exception”.
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