PHARMAC Decision Cruel Blow to Women Desperate for Herceptin

The Breast Cancer Aotearoa Coalition (BCAC) expressed disbelief over the PHARMAC decision announced today not to support full funding for breast cancer treatment drug Herceptin (trastuzumab). Crucial new data from the 23 month international HERA trial demonstrating clear survival benefits has not been considered by PHARMAC and will not be reviewed until August.

Medsafe registered Herceptin for early breast cancer use in March and PHARMAC took 4 months to deliver today’s negative decision. In contrast, the equivalent UK body made a positive recommendation within two weeks of registration and Australia has followed. Countries such as Ireland, France, Canada, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and Slovenia are already providing funded access to Herceptin.

‘We are appalled that PHARMAC has chosen not to support funding for Herceptin’, said BCAC Chair Libby Burgess. ‘The government needs to understand that this decision is absolutely unacceptable to the women of New Zealand. Our government proclaims equity for all in our health system and yet does the complete reverse, allowing New Zealand to slip behind other countries and so condoning terrible suffering for women and their families. How can the strong scientific evidence supporting Herceptin be ignored so blatantly with such a short-sighted penny pinching decision? How can PHARMAC decide that New Zealand women’s lives are worth less than those of women in Australia, the UK and other countries?’

‘It is shameful that the oncologists who sit on PHARMAC’s cancer treatments subcommittee (CATSOP) can suggest that Herceptin is only of medium or low priority while they continue to prescribe Herceptin for patients in their private practices. This is a huge betrayal both of their paying patients and the many women who cannot afford to pay and so rely on our public health system to care for them. Oncologists around the world are prescribing Herceptin because its benefits in the treatment of this aggressive form of breast cancer are huge and unprecedented.

‘The pharmaceuticals budget is too small,’ said Ms Burgess. ‘Each year, New Zealand spends only $190 per person on pharmaceuticals – less than half of the $420 spent per person in Australia. By keeping the strings tight on this small purse, PHARMAC and the government are standing in the way of a healthy New Zealand. How can we ever achieve equity, fairness and good health for all if this is allowed to continue? The shameful spectacle of women forced to beg on national television for the drugs they need to save their own lives, or to make desperate choices between their best chance at life and their children’s education says it all about the state of health care in New Zealand. This announcement by PHARMAC today is dreadful news, not only for the women directly affected but also for their families, communities, their workmates and all the ordinary New Zealanders for whom this disease is a reality now and in the future.’