"I am a human being too, I have a family who loves me, I am not a bad person."
She would be willing to self-fund the drug if it was made more affordable for the average person.
Mrs Richardson's income was about to become $600 per week on joint superannuation with her husband, Milton.
"I feel like a second-rate citizen. My life is not as important enough to bother with," she said.
"There is an inequality between the people who can afford it and the people who can't afford it."
It is not the first time she has battled cancer. In 2006, she was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer and underwent an operation, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Eleven years later she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer "which is inoperable, incurable, and terminal" on January 24 this year.
She has a tumour on her right lung, left rib cage, right chest wall and near the top of her spine.
Mrs Richardson has chemotherapy once a week and takes boxes of pills for nausea and other side-effects every Tuesday.
"With Ibrance I would just have to take a pill," she said. "And no more needles."
Mrs Richardson said with palbociclib she would be able to make plans for holidays and fishing trips with her husband which was impossible while she was undergoing chemotherapy.
The Breast Cancer Aotearoa Coalition also wants to see the drug publicly funded.
Chairperson Libby Burgess said many women could miss out on the potentially life-saving medicine.
"This medicine is a game changer for women with hormone receptor positive, and HER2-negative breast cancer," she said.
"BCAC and breast cancer patients are desperate to see Pharmac fund Ibrance for use in our public hospitals and we hope this will happen in the near future."
Cancer Society of NZ medical director Dr Chris Jackson said the drug would help to improve tumour control by an average of 10 times.
"The data is not mature enough to know if people will live longer but it is most likely that would be the case.
"If money was not an issue it would be something you would look at funding. It is clearly a clinical advance but equally, we understand the limited funding pool that Pharmac has to deal with."
Breast Cancer Support Service Tauranga Trust service manager Helen Alice said the trust supported any drug that could cure or effectively arrest breast cancer being freely available to New Zealanders.
She said the trust supported about 30 people at any one time with metastatic breast cancer.
"Many of these women have families and children and face not seeing them grow up because of their terminal breast cancer.
"When this can be turned around by an effective drug, it is life-changing for so many."
Pharmac director of operations Sarah Fitt said the company had been actively engaging with the supplier Pfizer and was awaiting a funding application and considering Pfizer's medical evidence in depth.
A Pfizer New Zealand spokesperson said getting Ibrance registered and available to Kiwi women as quickly as possible was its first priority.
"Our next priority is to complete the funding application to Pharmac, with a view to securing appropriate access for patients."
Health Minister Jonathan Coleman said Pharmac's budget for 2017/18 was a record $871 million.
"The National Government has increased Pharmac's budget by $220m since 2008."
IBRANCE:
- Ibrance is given in combination with other medicines, either an aromatise inhibitor or fluvestrant
- It works by interfering with certain proteins in the body called kinases to help stop cancer cells from dividing and growing.
- The Paloma-2 clinical trial showed post-menopausal participants receiving Ibrance, plus letrozole, lived about 10 months longer without their cancer progressing
- Taken orally, Ibrance is produced by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer
- Common side effects include a decrease in infection-fighting white blood cells called neutrophils, low levels of white blood cells, fatigue, low red blood cell counts, upper respiratory infection, and nausea.
Breast Cancer Aotearoa Coalition
