Malcolm Mulholland: Patient Voice Aotearoa on Health NZ blocking early access to cancer drug Keytruda

Belief a controversial Health New Zealand decision on cancer drug funding - will shorten lives.

Pharmac's giving free access to Keytruda for five types of cancer, but funding doesn't kick in for two months.

Health NZ has scrapped a proposal to provide it the medication for people in need until then.

Patient Voice Aotearoa's Malcolm Mulholland says he is gobsmacked.

He told Heather du Plessis-Allan it's the cruellest decision he's seen Health NZ make, and will mean patients lives are cut short.

LISTEN ABOVE

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now on another subject, patient advocates are furious because of
a drug company offering a small group of cases cancer
patients early access to a new cancer drug. Problem is
Health New Zealand has blocked this. So far, MAK agreed
to fund the medicine key Truder from the first of October.
You'll remember that cancer patients really stoked about that. It's
designed to treat five cancers with this round of funding

(00:20):
head and neck, triple negative, breast, colorectal bladder, and Hodgkin lymphoma.
The drug company has now offered to give twenty to
thirty patients free access in the meantime, but Health New
Zealand has blocked it, saying the rollout is planned for
October needs to be done on the basis of need.
Patient voice olts here or a chair. Malcolm mole Holland
is with us. Now, hey Malcolm, for a start, why

(00:40):
did the drug company offer it to these twenty to
thirty patients.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
My understanding is that that happens quite a bit. So
if a drug company knows that a drug is going
to be funded in the interim, they'll offer an early
excess scheme giving the drug for free. And so this
has happened in the past again with the same company
for the same drug, this time for Lunken. So they
did that last year and the lead up to it

(01:05):
being publicly funded by FARMI, so this is nothing new.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Why do they do that?

Speaker 2 (01:11):
It's a very good question. I suspect it's probably because
they want to get the product to market as soon
as they can, and they want the patients to be
able to access that treatment. Probably if you diagnose them
within that time frame they're able to get the product.
That means they'll continue on once the funding kicks and
so perhaps that's their motivation.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Why did heuse New Zealand block it.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Look, that's a great question. I can't, for the life
of me figure this out, not even on the basis
of need. You can have any criteria other than you
go and see an oncologist, you are told you have
a particular cancer, and they to you this is the
best drug publicly available, this is the drug that you need.
So to me, the whole need argument doesn't steck up.

(01:53):
It's neither here nor there.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
It doesn't make any sense, Malcolm, because what we're getting
is potentially free treatment twenty to thirty people. We should
be grateful for that. Shouldn't we Oh?

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Absolutely we should. This is that's exactly what it is.
That's free, and not only that it faces the text
payer money because when it's been impused in the clinics
in the public system, the amount of time that a
patient goes there for an infusion for ky treat that
is least and it's also less time spent in the

(02:23):
infusion clinic, which frees up seats by other kings of
patients that need the likes of tunure drugs and the like.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, Malcolm, is it possible? I mean we're talking about
so we're right the start of August, so August September,
and it's not until October that this actually kicks in
through the health system. Those two months that these people
would otherwise be treated with key truder, is it possible
that their health will deteriorate in those two months to
a point that might be I don't know, fatal.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
It depends on the patient, to be honest with you,
and when they're diagnosed, it would be really hard to
sort of say, cat blanche that that would be the case.
Where my heart really bleeds though, is for those in
the next two months who are diagnosed with either head
or net cancer, cholarectal or triple negative because the criteria
is such that they can only access Key Treader as
it's prescribed as a first line treatment. That's the criteria

(03:12):
set by CLIMA. So if they're diagnosed and the oncologist says, look, sorry,
it can't give you Key treator, but I'll give you
a temode drug, that means when it comes to the
second or third line treatments down the pathway, they can't
access Key Treager anymore because it wasn't given to them
as the first line treatment option.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Is it possible that how New Zealand have said no
to this because what the drug company is giving is
two months free access and then after that the public
health system has to pick up the key true to
cost for these twenty to thirty people. Is that what
the problem is?

Speaker 2 (03:41):
No, I wouldn't think so, because they would have predicted
these numbers any here, you know. So that's the basis
on which they conduct the negotiation. So it shouldn't come
as any great surprise that they're going to be ex
amount of patients needing this particular drug.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Malcolm, thank you for talking to us. We'll never really
understand how's New Zealand as much as we try appreciate it.
That's cheer the cheer off patient voice outs here or
Malcolm mulholland. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, Listen
live to news Talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio