Resource impact statement

No significant resource impact is anticipated

NICE has recommended pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy (paclitaxel or nab paclitaxel) as an option for treating triple negative, locally recurrent unresectable or metastatic breast cancer in adults who have not had chemotherapy for metastatic disease. It is recommended only if the tumours express PD-L1 with a combined positive score (CPS) of 10 or more and an immune cell staining (IC) of less than 1% and the company provides pembrolizumab according to the commercial arrangement (see section 2 of guidance).

This recommendation is not intended to affect treatment with pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy that was started in the NHS before this guidance was published. People having treatment outside this recommendation may continue without change to the funding arrangements in place for them before this guidance was published, until they and their NHS clinician consider it appropriate to stop.

We do not expect this guidance to have a significant impact on resources; that is, the resource impact of implementing the recommendations in England will be less than £5 million per year (or approximately £9,000 per 100,000 population, based on a population for England of 56.3 million people).

This is because the population is small.

Pembrolizumab and the other treatment options for this patient group have discounts that are commercial in confidence.

This technology is commissioned by NHS England. Providers are NHS hospital trusts.

This page was last updated: