Nivestim

<p>Nivestim is a medicine that stimulates the production of white blood cells and is used:</p><ul><li>to reduce the duration of neutropenia (low levels of neutrophils, a type of white blood cell) and to prevent febrile neutropenia (neutropenia with fever) in cancer patients (excluding patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia or with myelodysplastic syndromes). Neutropenia is a common side effect of cancer treatment and can leave patients vulnerable to infections.</li><li>to reduce the duration of neutropenia in patients undergoing treatment to destroy the bone marrow cells before a bone marrow transplant (such as in some patients with leukaemia) if they are at risk of long-term, severe neutropenia;</li><li>to increase levels of neutrophils and reduce the risk of infections in patients with neutropenia who have a history of severe, repeated infections;</li><li>to treat persistent neutropenia in patients with advanced human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, to reduce the risk of bacterial infections when other treatments are not appropriate.</li></ul><p>Nivestim can also be used in people who are about to donate blood stem cells for transplant, to help release these cells from the bone marrow.</p><p>Nivestim is a ‘biosimilar’ medicine. This means that Nivestim is highly similar to another biological medicine (the ‘reference medicine’) that is already authorised in the EU. The reference medicine for Nivestim is Neupogen. For more information on biosimilar medicines, see below.</p><p>Nivestim contains the active substance filgrastim.</p>