Overview of the lenograstim pharmacoeconomics programme.

Lenograstim is a recombinant colony-stimulating factor that has been shown to be a useful adjunctive agent in cancer chemotherapy. Clinical trials have demonstrated the efficacy of lenograstim in correcting chemotherapy-induced neutropenia and associated complications in inflammatory breast cancer and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and in facilitating dose intensification of chemotherapy in small cell lung cancer. To meet increasing demands for economic data on new drug entities, a lenograstim pharmacoeconomics programme was established. This programme involved prospective economic evaluations of lenograstim that were undertaken as part of phase III randomised clinical trials by a combined German/Italian health-economics team (inflammatory breast cancer), a French team (non-Hodgkin's lymphoma), and a team from the UK (small cell lung cancer).