D-DAY FOR CANCER DRUG FIGHT WOMEN
Announcement due on whether to make Kadcyla available for all on NHS
AT 2PM this afternoon, terminally ill Scots with HER2 positive breast cancer will either be thrown a lifeline or see it snatched away.
That’s when it will be announced whether Scotland’s NHS will prescribe cancer drug Kadcyla – known to extend the life of women with the metastasised form of the cancer by at least six months. In the US, some women are still alive on the drugs after five years or more.
The Record has campaigned for the drug to be given on the NHS to any woman who needs it.
A petition calling for it to be made available on the NHS was launched by four mums connected by incurable breast cancer and backed by the Record.
Lesley Graham, Lesley Stephen and Anne Maclean-Chang owe their lives to Kadcyla, while Alison Tait prays she is able to access it when her condition reaches that final stage.
Roche – who make the drug – are quietly confident their application to the Scottish Medicines Consortium will be approved.
Until today it has been available only on prescription through an individual patient treatment request to health boards. But very few women have been successful.
To pay for it privately costs £90,000 a year.
Alison said: “If Kadcyla is rejected it will be a dark day for women with secondary breast cancer in Scotland.”
Lesley Graham added: “Women’s lives hang in the balance today. If today ends up being a ‘no’ we’ll be devastated, but not beaten.
Anne said: “I know I’m lucky my fight to get it was successful. I want to make sure that every woman in Scotland going through this disease can access this drug if they need it.”