Keytruda is a step closer to being available for more cancers listed on the PBS

Australia could be a world leader in treating cancer if a major overhaul in drug funding is approved. See how it will work.

Exclusive: Cancer wonder drug Keytruda would be made available to a wider group of patients under a world-leading agreement giving hope to thousands of Australian’s with rare cancers.

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee will meet next week to consider a multi-cancer access agreement that would see 7000 Australians living with cancer benefit from next year and a further 20,000 by 2027.

The agreement would replace the current process where cancer drugs are assessed individually, paving the way for bulk approvals.

This would see patients get access to the immunotherapy drug more than a year earlier than they do now and at a fraction of the cost – down from $11,000 a months to just $7.

Immunotherapy drug Keytruda could soon be offered more widely on the PBS.

Currently, Keytruda is on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) for 12 cancer types. This would increase to additional eight new cancer types immediately, and up 24 cancer types over four years.

In the US, Keytruda is available for 39 cancer types.

The drug, which works with a patient’s own immune system to destroy cancer cells, is already subsidised for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, late stage malignant melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer.

MSD Australia and New Zealand is a pharmaceutical company that specialises in oncology. It’s managing director Prashant Nikam said the agreement would put Australia among a cohort of countries globally delivering fast access to immunotherapy drugs.

Prashant Nikam Managing Director, MSD Australia and New Zealand said Keytruda had been proven to be safe and effective against many cancers.Supplied

Richard Vines of Rare Cancers Australi said the multi cancer Keytruda deal would be a world first. Supplied

“If you look at the current system, unfortunately patients have to wait for over 440 days to get access to a TGA registered drug, with multi-cancer funding arrangement with the government. Patients will not have to wait that long it’ll almost be instantaneously, almost zero days – so you’re going from over 400 days, down to zero days, which is an incredible achievement for Australia,” Mr Nikam said.

“One thing we all know is that cancer patients don’t have time. That’s the one thing that they always ask for … Patients can’t really wait to access innovative treatment for over a year.

“By doing something like this, can we get Australia to be a world leading country with a broad, equitable and affordable access. And I think that’s what it achieves,” he said.

Rare Cancers Australia chairman Richard Vines said it was a “quirk of the system” that every different use of a drug has to be approved.

The supply of Keytruda would essentially move to a doctor’s discretion and not be “held up by bureaucrats or economists”, he said.

Pink Hope CEO Sarah Powell. Supplied

“A doctor can sit there and say ‘well, this is now part of the arsenal to treat this cancer’. That’s really the consequence. As opposed to (saying) ‘I’d like to do this’ and trying to have a conversation with a patient about whether they can afford to pay.”

Mr Vines said there was “no question” it would save lives.

“We’ve seen it work to extend lives or keep people alive indefinitely,” he said.

Pink Hope CEO Sarah Powell, who was diagnosed with cancer when she was 29, said she was “blown away it’s actually got to this stage”.

“It’s really exciting,” she said.

“I had triple negative breast cancer, which is the most aggressive so growing very fast and often has a poor prognosis … I was one of the lucky ones,” she said.