This article was first published by RNZ.
The Cancer Control Agency is ignoring data showing the effectiveness of several blood cancer drugs, which are free to Australian patients, a leading specialist says.
A report by the government agency last week identified 42 medicines which were funded in Australia but not New Zealand as of 1 January, although six have subsequently been covered.
Nine drugs not yet funded showed “significant clinical benefit”.
However, consultant haematologist Dr Roger Tiedemann said that analysis was too narrow because it only considered data from registration trials, which compared the new treatment with standard treatment.
“Those are very important trials of course, but things in medicine move on. As the years go by, we learn more about how these medicines work in combination with other treatments, whether they are effective at earlier stages of the disease, how they impact survival long-term.”
The agency’s analysis did not take any of that into account, he said.
“There’s a number of medicines there that clearly have a substantial clinical benefit for the patients I see, and that haven’t made the cut in the report,” he said.
“So that shows me that the threshold and the analysis for doing this report is wrong, it’s just too basic.”
Every country’s health system had to balance competing demands, he said.
“The whole point of this report was to compare ourselves with Australia, and it’s very clear from the report that the line that we draw is way off from where our closest neighbour draws the line.
“But they’ve done their analysis in such a way that doesn’t reflect the reality that a number of these medicines are very useful for patients who have cancer.”
While the government drug funding agency Pharmac had invested in six more blood cancer drugs this year, Australia had funded new medicines since that time too, he said.
“So the gap is still growing. Yes, there are drugs that we fund in New Zealand that are not funded in Australia - but they are largely outdated, we just keep them going because we haven’t got anything else to fill the gap.”
Cancer Control Agency chief executive Rami Rahal said the agency used the internationally recognised ESMO Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale in the analysis, to be consistent with its previous report on solid tumour cancer medicines.
“The tool was also designed for use in a policy setting which aligns with the overall objective of this analysis.
“However, the tool does assess magnitude of clinical benefit in a very specific way.
“When Pharmac is making medicine funding decisions they integrate a range of factors to contribute to decision-making, including consideration of the population health benefit of the medicine.”
Drugs that did not meet the “substantial magnitude of clinical benefit” rating could still be considered effective treatments for some patients, he added.
- RNZ