Cancer drugs offer hope to many
Patient advocates praise Pharmac for funding new treatments but say more medicines need to be available
More than 300 people have been given another chance at life at a cost of more than $ 6.6 million thanks to the decision to fund three new immunotherapy drugs.
Advocates say lives are being prolonged and even saved, but are calling for more treatments to be available.
Pharmac last year agreed to fund t wo new drugs that targeted advanced melanoma. In the first seven months Opdivo was available, 61 people had approval to use it and in the first five months Keytruda was funded, 223 people were approved.
Of those, 104 people were granted a renewal, which suggested the person benefited from treatment, Pharmac said.
Breast cancer drug Perjeta has been funded by Pharmac since January 1 and 34 applications were approved in the first month. The cost of that is not yet available.
Melanoma NZ chief executive Linda Flay said she believed the cost was worth it even if not everyone New immunotherapy treatments approved by Pharmac: Initial applications approved: 61 Renewals approved: 32 Initial applications approved: 223 Renewals approved: 72 Initial applications approved: 34 * Applications approved up until the end of January 2017 could be guaranteed results.
“If 30, 40, 50 per cent are getting a response, it’s better than sending people away with no help.
“Before this there was a huge unmet need for advanced melanoma. This allows them to have hope to increase their life expectancy that they didn’t have before.”
She was heartened by the decisions to fund Opdivo and Keytruda but said there was still a need for people who were too sick for immunotherapy drugs.
She said gene therapy drugs such as Debrafenib also needed to be funded by Pharmac to give the worst sufferers a chance.
Cancer patient Leisa Renwick last year successfully campaigned for funding for Keytruda so everyone with latestage melanoma could access the drug, which costs $ 8500 every three weeks.
Her petition gained more than 11,000 signatures and was referred to the health select committee but in May the Government acted before submissions were heard and gave Pharmac a further $ 39m to fund Keytruda and Opdivo.
Renwick told the Weekend Herald she was pleased by how many people had benefited from the drug.
“It’s really good news. It’s just unfortunate how hard it was to get the funding in the first place and we’re still not where other countries are.”
A good example was Dabrafenib, one of the drugs which saved her life, she said. When she was diagnosed in 2015 she was too sick for Keytruda. She was first prescribed Dabrafenib which helped improve her health to the point where immunotherapy could work. “The only reason I’m alive now is that the oncologist had the ability to give me exactly what I needed at the right time. It’s fantastic that people are getting treatment here but without that ability it’s no good.” Because the drugs responded differently in different people, a wider range needed to be available, she said. Pharmac director of operations Sarah Fitt said Dabrafenib had been reviewed by clinical advisers who recommended its funding application be declined because of the associated toxicity, uncertainty about the benefit and duration of benefit, the cost and recent funding of other drugs such as Opdivo and Keytruda. Breast Cancer Foundation NZ research manager Adele Gautier said the organisation was excited patients now had access to Perjeta. Perjeta is used in conjunction with Herceptin, another breast cancer drug, and significantly improved the effectiveness for many people.
“Advanced breast cancer is currently incurable. These drugs are sometimes giving years more life to people,” she said.
“It really is a great medicine for advanced HER2+ cancer. The clinical trials have shown great results for Perjeta. It really is the standard of care internationally.”
The foundation was now fighting to get funding for the 160 women who were already using Herceptin to be given Perjeta as well, she said.
Pharmac confirmed its clinical advisers had been asked to give their view so a decision on whether to extend the funding could be made.
While funding Perjeta was a great victory, all the drugs available for latestage breast cancer eventually stopped working so more drugs were needed to continue to prolong lives, Gautier said.
Health Minister Jonathan Coleman said Pharmac’s model for increasing subsidised treatments was world class. He drew attention to the funding boost in the last Budget, an extra $ 124m over four years.