Anti-asthma drug Xolair is on a roll

When you're hot, you're hot. The Novartis/Genentech allergy drug Xolair got a big thumbs-up in yesterday's new asthma treatment guidelines. Today, the Brits say they want their patients with severe asthma to get Xolair, too.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which decides whether the National Health Service should pay for individual drugs, recommended Xolair for use in patients whose asthma is so severe, it has confined them to hospital at least once within the past year. NICE says the recommendation isn't final, though, because it's still appraising the drug--but it is the details that are likely to change, not the overall feeling that Xolair's hot stuff.

- here's the AFX report