Posted by Michael Wonder on 11 Jun 2018
Here’s the evidence – time to play fair PHARMAC
11 June 2018 - In light of new clinical trial results, Breast Cancer Foundation New Zealand is urging PHARMAC to consider giving life-extending drug Perjeta to patients who’ve been missing out due to an earlier decision that the Foundation labelled unfair.
When public funding of Perjeta commenced in January 2017, 160 patients already taking Herceptin for metastatic (advanced) breast cancer were excluded from the new drug on the grounds that, although Herceptin and Perjeta are taken together, the scientific evidence at the time didn’t prove a definitive benefit for patients who had already started Herceptin.
But in the PHEREXA trial, just presented at the prestigious American Society for Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago, half of the patients who added Perjeta to their existing Herceptin treatment for metastatic HER2+ breast cancer survived more than three years, compared with an average survival of just two years four months for those continuing on Herceptin alone.
