To fight cancer
(eribulinmesylate), which costs $8580 for each three-week cycle in New Zealand but is completely funded in Australia.
Since July, Mcintyre has spent more than $50,000 on this treatment, using money raised through fundraisers, plus a recent payout from ACC to acknowledge the misdiagnosis.
But this has only partly kept the cancer at bay and a recent scan showed while the cancer in her breast is reducing, other spots have appeared in her lungs.
Mcintrye has been told she needs Trodelvy (sacituzumab govitecan-hziy), a combined chemotherapy and antibody treatment specially designed for her condition.
But this new treatment will cost about $55,000 every two weeks. It will cost $1 million for the entire treatment but it is Mcintyre’s best chance to have a future, she says.
‘‘There’s this new amazing medication but I can’t have it because I’mtoo poor ... This is someone’s life over funding. Only the really expensive drugs will work because what I have is so rare and aggressive, and they won’t fund those products for people like me, so I just have to pay up or die, pretty much.’’
Mcintyre is barely able to keep up with the cost for Halaven, which means she has to constantly fundraise.
Pharmac director of operations Lisawilliams said Pharmac could and would move quickly to fund newmedicines that show significant health benefits.
However, neither Halaven nor Trodelvy had been approved by Medsafe for sale or distribution in New Zealand, and Pharmac had not had an application to fund either of those medicines, Williams said.