Government drug buying agency Pharmac has defended the range of cancer drugs offered to patients, despite an international study showing New Zealand’s access to new drugs is “low and slow”.
The Swedish study, published today in the cancer journal Annals of Oncology, said patients’ access to new and better cancer drugs in New Zealand was on a par with Poland, Czech Republic, and South Africa – at the bottom of the table.
The United States, Austria, Switzerland and France topped the survey.
The report said patients around the world faced “stark inequalities” in access to cancer treatment, with the rate of uptake of new cancer drugs “low and slow” in New Zealand.
Pharmac medical director Peter Moodie questioned the report’s findings, saying that in the United States 46 million people had no access to any funded healthcare, particularly pharmaceuticals, and that their mortality figures were “significantly worse” than New Zealand’s.
Dr Moodie said New Zealand was not so much slow as “careful” when it came to funding cancer drugs.
“There are many of them which give very small benefit,” he told Radio New Zealand.
He defended Pharmac’s recent decision to fund Herceptin for early-stage HER-2 breast cancer for nine weeks rather than the internationally accepted 12 months.
“We felt that that was the best that we should do, that there was evidence for it (the nine-week period). The alternative was to use something like 50 per cent of our existing pharmaceutical budget for oncology drugs.”
Dr Moodie said Pharmac had to ensure it got value for money from the drugs that it committed to funding.
“I don’t think that there is any sense in throwing money away even in terms of cancer treatment. You’ve got to make sure that the drug really works.”
The Swedish study covered 25 countries, including New Zealand, with a total population of 984 million, and the report canvassed access to 67 innovative cancer drugs.
“In many countries new drugs are not reaching patients quickly enough and that this is having an adverse impact on patient survival,” said one of the report’s authors, Nils Wilking.
“Where you live can determine whether you receive the best available treatment or not. To some extent this is determined by economic factors, but much of the variation between countries remains unexplained.”
The authors recommended reducing the review time for the marketing authorisation of new cancer drugs and ensuring that any economic evaluation or health technology assessment was done quickly to aid patient access.
The inequalities between countries should not continue, the report said.
“Cancer patients will not accept that a standard of care available in one country is not available in other countries.”
National Party associate health spokeswoman Jackie Blue said the report showed Pharmac was failing to give New Zealanders access to drugs and Health Minister Pete Hodgson should step in.
She said over the past five years Pharmac underspent its budget upwards of $50 million and when it did decide to spend money on drugs it took too long.
“The time for a drug to get funding approval in New Zealand takes an average of two years, which is far too long,” she said.
“The delays and stalling involved in getting approval in itself functions as a rationing strategy.”
Dr Blue said breast cancer drug Taxol, funded in September 2006, took two years longer to be available in New Zealand than in Australia.
She said Herceptin was another example.
