News /Media

The Dominion Post Date: 05 Jul 2005 Page: A 6

Patients plead for drug funds

Brain tumour patients beg minister to license treatment that could extend their time with their families, writes Nikki MacDonald.

IT IS not surprising Dave Bowman is putting up a fight. First he was told he was unlikely to see out the year. Then he discovered his best hope of buying a few more months with his children is not even licensed in New Zealand, never mind funded, for his condition.

The 35-year-old Raumati father of two met Health Minister Annette King yesterday to push for funding and approval for chemotherapy drug temozolomide _ hailed as the most significant development in the treatment of newly diagnosed brain tumours in 50 years.

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine in March found the drug, used with radiation therapy, improved the chances of surviving two years from one in 10 to one in four. But in New Zealand temozolomide, sold as Temodal, is not funded and is licensed to treat recurring tumours only.

Mr Bowman is mortgaging his family's future to pay the drug's $6000 a month price tag. Though the drug is expensive, he said brain tumour patients had a right to the only effective treatment available. "I'm already fighting the illness. It makes me angry I have to fight this too."

Ms King had recognised the need to have the matter considered quickly, but made it clear the decision was not up to her, Mr Bowman said.

Pharmac medical director Peter Moodie said the drug-buying agency had twice considered funding temozolomide for recurrent tumours, but the benefits did not stack up.
He was aware of the research showing the success of the drug in treating newly diagnosed tumours, but its manufacturer had not asked Pharmac to reconsider. The agency would be happy to look at any new evidence at its meeting in August.

And how do you assess the value of a 7-year-old boy getting an extra few months with his father? "When a therapy is very high cost, and this is very high cost, there are two things: evidence of both improved length of life and quality of life."

Though the journal study showed improved survival, it was not known what state the surviving patients were in, Dr Moodie said.

But International Brain Tumour Alliance president Denis Strangman, in Wellington lending support, said New Zealand was dragging the chain. Patients in Australia now pay just $28.60 a month for temozolomide treatment, after the country fast-tracked the funding process in the wake of the new study.

Britain is also considering the case for funding. Mr Strangman, whose wife died of a brain tumour, believed 100 New Zealanders a year could benefit from the drug, costing the Government $4 million at most. Fast action, not referral to a committee, was needed.

Wellington Hospital oncologist David Hamilton said the latest research was the biggest advance in the treatment of brain tumours in about 50 years, since the introduction of radiation therapy doubled survival rates.

Though clearly the best option, a limited drug budget meant the chances of getting funding were "slender in the extreme", he said. "This is good stuff and all my patients should have it. But on a competing funding basis, it probably does not stack up against other drugs."

The reality was that patients with aggressive brain tumours were a lost cause.