Last week, the government’s drug purchasing agency, Pharmac, said that it had decided not to fund a new drug, Keytruda, which cancer treatment specialists say is a breakthrough treatment for advanced melanoma.
Without treatment, most of those suffering from advanced melanoma will die. The drug won’t save every life but clinical trials show for at least a third of sufferers Keytruda will be effective in curing their cancer.
Melanoma kills about 300 Kiwis every year. That means that being able to access the new drug will save more than 100 lives a year. It’s not cheap. A full course of treatment costs around $300,000. For those who have access to that sort of spare cash, they will pay for the drug themselves. Who wouldn’t make that investment to save their life?
But for others who don’t have the money and don’t want to burden their families with huge debts, particularly if they don’t survive the treatment and leave their dependents without a breadwinner, the cost is prohibitive.
It is fundamentally wrong that life or death should depend on wealth and income. Every person, regardless of their means, should have the right to access life-saving treatment. In Australia and the UK, Keytruda is publicly funded but in New Zealand the decision has been taken not to fund it.
I don’t blame Pharmac. As an agency, they have to live within their means. Over the last six years it is estimated that National has underfunded the health sector by $1.7 billion. Pharmac, for example, put in a modest claim this year for an additional $11 million for its budget to be able to invest in new medicines. It got less than half of this amount. Of course, the government doesn’t have an endless supply of money but it is about priorities. We are currently spending $26 million on a referendum on a new flag. One referendum could have been held at a fraction of that cost, coinciding with the next general election. For reasons never explained, the government has taken the high cost option despite every public opinion poll showing a new flag will be rejected by a sizeable majority.
What is more important? Funding a referendum that is likely to fail or paying for a drug that will save lives?
The government is saying they can’t overrule Pharmac, but National got elected in 2008 on a promise to do just that. They promised to overrule Pharmac to put additional funding into a breast cancer drug Herceptin. National MPs carrying mock coffins in protest marches said funding cancer drugs was the right thing to do.
That was, of course, then when there was a political motivation to win votes. That’s an absolute double standard. This issue around Keytruda should be about saving human lives and not politics.
The drug has been proven to be effective in a significant proportion of cases, and is publicly funded in other countries. National should fund Pharmac adequately so this drug is available to people fighting for their lives. There’s no way that access to this treatment should depend on personal wealth rather than need.