Hard cell in cancer crisis

Patients denied life-saving treatments because of classification woes

THEY are the breakthrough medicines turning cancer from a death sentence into a chronic disease but only one in five of the Australians who need them are getting them.

High cost immunotherapy treatments that use the body’s own immune system to fight cancer are being used by just 1500 of the 7500 cancer patients who could benefit according to a new report.

Patients, cancer groups, cli- nicians and pharmaceutical companies will today meet politicians in Canberra to call for changes to Australia’s regulatory and medical subsidy schemes to fast track access to the medicines.

They want medicine approval bodies to stop classifying cancers according to the body part they emerge in and instead classify them by their genetic signature as the US FDA has done.

This would open up treatments to many thousands of patients currently denied help.

Currently someone with melanoma, lung cancer and kidney cancer can get a subsidised immunotherapy treatment but if they have adenocarcinoma or Merkel cell carcinoma or other cancer types the treatment is not subsidised.

“It’s irrelevant to talk about body parts when you are talking about the future of cancer medicines,” says Professor Ian Olver former Cancer Council chief who now works at the Sansom Institute Research.

Pharmaceutical Company Merck, Sharp & Dohme has commissioned a Deloitte Access Economics report which shows in Australia immunotherapies are approved for five cancer types, well short of the 11 in the USA and the six approved in Europe.

Only three of the immunotherapies in Australia are subsidised by the PBS and the high cost of the other two ($80,000$100,000 a year) means many for Health patients them.

Four patients interviewed by the report authors are having to self-fund their treatment because it is not subsidised in Australia.

Jonathan, surname suppressed, said he is paying close to $100,000 for his treatment for Merkel cell carcinoma, which was not subsidised for his cancer while the person with melanoma next to him in hospital was paying $37 through the PBS. simply can’t afford

Fellow patient Ross says he’s lucky he can afford to pay for his treatment for bladder cancer.

“I feel for those who cannot afford this lifesaving treatment,” he said.

To which another patient involved in the research said: “You hear of people – they sell their house, they cash in their super.”

“They crowd fund and feel guilty if it doesn’t work. Well we couldn’t afford it. Paying for it just wasn’t an option.”