Roche Canada and the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance (pCPA) successfully complete negotiations for COLUMVI® (glofitamab for injection) for the treatment of Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma

MISSISSAUGA, ON, July 24, 2024 /CNW/ - Hoffmann-La Roche Limited (Roche Canada) today announced that it successfully completed negotiations with the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance (pCPA) for COLUMVI® (glofitamab for injection) on July 22, 2024. The pCPA negotiates on behalf of the provinces and territories, making the end of these negotiations a critical step in bringing Columvi closer to public access.

Reaching this important milestone is the result of close collaboration with pCPA and further emphasizes the need to move quickly through the subsequent steps to public reimbursement. The next step will be for provincial and territorial governments to make the final decision on public reimbursement for their regions.

Roche Canada is committed to continuing to work with the provincial and territorial jurisdictions to make Columvi available as soon as possible through public drug plans for the patients who need it.

DLBCL is an aggressive (fast-growing) type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), and is the most common type of NHL.¹ While it is generally responsive to treatment in the frontline, as many as 40% of people will relapse or have refractory disease.² Columvi offers an additional treatment option for this patient population in Canada, after several lines of therapy, where managing the disease can become complex and options may be limited.²

Columvi was reviewed and positively recommended by Canada's Health Technology Assessment bodies, including the Canada's Drug Agency (CDA) Canadian Drug Expert Committee (CDEC) on February 21, 2024,³ as well as the Institut national d'excellence en santé et en services sociaux (INESSS) on March 5, 2024.⁴ These recommendations came roughly one year after Columvi received marketing authorization from Health Canada on March 24, 2023.

About Columvi (glofitamab for injection)⁵

Columvi is indicated for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) not otherwise specified, DLBCL arising from follicular lymphoma (trFL), or primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma (PMBCL), who have received two or more lines of systemic therapy and are ineligible to receive or cannot receive CAR-T cell therapy or have previously received CAR-T cell therapy. COLUMVI comes as a concentrate for solution for infusion, with each vial containing either 2.5 mg (in 2.5 mL) or 10 mg (in 10 mL) of COLUMVI. Each mL contains 1 mg of COLUMVI.

About Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma (DLBCL)

Lymphoma is the name for a group of blood cancers that develop in your lymphatic system and occur in two main types: Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).⁶ In particular, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is an aggressive (fast-growing) blood cancer and the most common form of NHL.¹ While it is generally responsive to treatment in the frontline, as many as 40% of people will relapse or have refractory disease, where options may not offer optimal outcomes for patients and managing the disease can become complex.²

About Roche Canada

At Roche Canada, patients and science are at the heart of everything we do. Our passion for science and our commitment to relentlessly pursuing the impossible for patients have made us one of the world's leading pharmaceutical, in-vitro diagnostics, and diabetes care management companies.

With our combined strength in diagnostics and pharmaceuticals, we're driving healthcare forward, while ensuring we deliver meaningful benefits for patients and a sustainable healthcare system. Because we're committed to making quality healthcare accessible to everyone.

And we're adding our expertise in new areas, such as artificial intelligence, real world data collection and analysis and collaborating with many different sectors and industries.

Having the courage to reinvent ourselves and question the status quo is what patients and the healthcare system expect from Roche - and our commitment is as strong today as it was on the first day of our Canadian journey in 1931. Today, Roche Canada employs more than 1,800 people across the country through its Pharmaceuticals division in Mississauga, Ontario as well as its Diagnostics and Diabetes Care divisions in Laval, Quebec.

For more information, please visit www.RocheCanada.com or follow Roche Canada on LinkedIn, or on X / Twitter @RocheCanada.

References

1. Canadian Cancer Society. Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Available at: https://cancer.ca/en/cancer-information/cancer-types/non-hodgkin-lymphoma/treatment/treatment-by-type/diffuse-large-b-cell-lymphoma Accessed on July 22, 2024.
   
   
2. Sehn LH, Gascoyne RD. Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: optimizing outcome in the context of clinical and biologic heterogeneity. Blood. 2015;125(1):22-32.
   
   
3. CADTH Reimbursement Recommendation, Glofitamab (Columvi), February 2024. Available at: https://www.cadth.ca/glofitamab. Accessed on July 22, 2024.
   
   
4. INESSS Reimbursement Recommendation, Columvi. March 5, 2024. Available at: https://www.inesss.qc.ca/thematiques/medicaments/medicaments-evaluation-aux-fins-dinscription/extrait-davis-au-ministre/columvi-6790.html. Accessed on July 22, 2024.
   
   
5. COLUMVI Product Monograph, March 24, 2023.
   
   
6. Lymphoma Canada. Lymphoma. Available at: https://www.lymphoma.ca/lymphoma/. Accessed on July 22, 2024.

SOURCE Hoffmann-La Roche Limited (Roche Canada)

Media Contact: Amy Haddlesey, Roche Canada, 647-283-3406, [email protected]