Keytruda® Approved by the Scottish Medicine Consortium (SMC)

We are delighted that on October 10th 2022 the Scottish Medicine Consortium (SMC) announced a decision to approve a new medicine that will be made available in NHS Scotland for certain patients with advanced or secondary Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC).

Pembrolizumab, also known under the brand name Keytruda®, is an immunotherapy drug for the treatment of patients with TNBC.  Pembrolizumab works by blocking the activity of the PD-L1 protein, and this type of immunotherapy drug will help the person’s own immune system to attack cancer cells.  

Patients who have not yet received chemotherapy, and whose cancer has a particular protein (PD-L1), can access the drug through their clinician.  The drug is already approved for use in England through NICE.

Treatments for secondary breast cancer aim to control and slow down the disease to give patients the best possible quality of life, for as long as possible. 

This is a very welcomed decision by the SMC and will increase the number of treatment options for patients living with metastatic triple negative breast cancer. 

Professor David Cameron, Chair of Make 2nds Count, commented:

"M2C welcomes, on behalf of patients with secondary triple negative breast cancer, the decision by SMC to make pembrolizumab available within the Scottish NHS for the subset of TNBC patients suitable for this drug.  Triple negative breast cancer remains one of the more difficult types of secondary breast cancer to treat, and there is much more we need to learn about this disease to better support and treat patients with this disease."