Fight for people with rare forms of cancer to have more affordable access to immunotherapy drugs
“THE more money you have the longer you will live”. These are not the words anyone wants to hear while battling a life-threatening illness, but they reflect a stark reality for many Australians diagnosed with rare forms of cancer.
South East
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“THE more money you have the longer you will live”.
Those are not words you want to hear from your oncologist.
But that was the shocking reality Lynbrook man Brad Scicluna faced during a doctor’s consultation about potential lifesaving treatments for Stage 4 gall bladder cancer.
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Mr Scicluna’s rare condition doesn’t have any PBS listed treatment options after chemotherapy, and while he is now stable and set to take part in a clinical trial, the design engineer said he was speaking out for other people with rare cancers.
“It’s all about equality, why should some cancer patients have better access to treatments?” Mr Scicluna, 41, said.
“I had always assumed all cancers were treated the same way and that drugs were covered.
“Until you have cancer it’s not something you would know.”
Every year more than 6000 Australian cancer patients can’t afford potentially lifesaving treatments, which aren’t covered under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
The National Oncology Alliance (NOA) is calling for people with less common cancers to have faster and more affordable access to new medications.
NOA co-chair John Zalcberg said most Australians would be shocked to learn the extent to which cancer patients were either funding their own treatment or going without.
“Clearly the system can’t take its time to adapt because time is what most Australians living with cancer don’t have,” Professor Zalcberg said.
“Our health system must evolve to a point where it keeps up with advances in science and empowers clinicians to treat their patients with what they believe will help their patients beat cancer — not what our current system limits their access to.”
The alliance is calling on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) to put process in place that recognise some cancer treatments may be life changing for people with different kinds of cancers.
A Federal Department of Health spokeswoman said Health Minister Greg Hunt had requested the PBAC provide advice on listing PD-1 and PD-L1 immunotherapy for the treatments of multiple cancers on the PBS.
PBAC met on August 17 to discuss this matter and the results are yet to be released.
NOA co-chair Richard Vines said while the August meeting regarding PD-1/PD-L1 was a great start, there were other innovative oncology medicines that had potential across multiple cancer types.
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