Herceptin Affordable and Safe

The Breast Cancer Aotearoa Coalition (BCAC) is hopeful that when Pharmac’s advisory committee PTAC (Pharmaceutical Treatments Advisory Committee) meets tomorrow it will consider new data on Herceptin for the treatment of early stage Her2 positive breast cancer and will agree that Herceptin is a cost effective and safe treatment.

Twenty-three month follow up data from the international HERA trial (which involved over 5,000 women, including New Zealanders) made public at a major US oncology conference in June show that the use of Herceptin as adjuvant therapy in early stage Her2 positive breast cancer reduced the risk of death in those women by more than 33%. This indicates that Herceptin treatment for early stage breast cancer will save lives, potentially 66 New Zealand women per year.

‘PTAC has the opportunity tomorrow to consider this new data,’ said Libby Burgess, Chair of BCAC, ‘along with Medsafe’s safety approval in March, and to return a favourable recommendation on this breakthrough cancer treatment.’

Herceptin is already funded in New Zealand for women with advanced breast cancer, where it costs, with terminal care, about $66,000 per woman (according to Pharmac’s own conservative cost analysis) and may extend her life by 8-9 months. The cost of the drug for a woman with early stage disease is currently around $62,000. It is administered with curative intent, not just to delay relapse. The economic benefits of curing women with early stage disease are considerable. ‘Her2 positive breast cancer often affects young women who have much to contribute to their families, the community and the economy,’ said Ms Burgess. Treatment will reduce the likelihood of recurrent breast cancer and consequently the high costs of care associated with this stage of the disease.

‘Clearly, the government must increase the cancer treatments budget to provide for Herceptin and other effective targeted modern drugs which are set to revolutionise attitudes to cancer as a disease,’ said Ms Burgess. ‘It would be tragic if New Zealand fell behind the rest of the developed world in turning cancer from a deadly disease into a chronic treatable condition. While New Zealand spends only $190 per person per year on pharmaceuticals in total, Australia spends $420. New Zealand women already have a 28% higher chance of dying of breast cancer than