Cancer wonder drug looks too costly for Kiwi pockets

By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter

A new leukaemia drug that has produced "impressive" international trial results may be too costly for the Government to buy, says an advisory group.

Researchers and specialists say Glivec is a breakthrough in treating chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), a form of blood cancer.

The drug's maker, Novartis, has asked the Government's drug-buying agency Pharmac to subsidise Glivec.

Pharmac has not reached a decision, but its pharmacology and therapeutics advisory committee says that at a cost of more than $70,000 a year for each patient, the drug will probably never be affordable for the Government.

CML is relatively rare, with only one or two cases in each 100,000 people a year in New Zealand.

Glivec is considered suitable for patients for whom a bone marrow donor cannot be found and who are unable to tolerate the drug alpha-interferon.

Doctors expect the number of patients in this group to stabilise at about 200, costing the Government around $15 million a year.

Auckland leukaemia patient Dorothy Facoory, aged 65, said yesterday that she had been taking Glivec capsules for six months and she was "feeling excellent".

The committee said it would be hard to deny patients access to a drug that offered significant clinical benefits.

But as so few patients had CML, buying Glivec would use money that could be used to provide cheaper drugs for a much larger number of patients with other conditions.