Pharmac plans to fund breast cancer wonder drug Enhertu, brings new hope to Kiwi women

Breast cancer patient Maggie Ngatai has spent thousands of dollars on a wonder drug and is getting promising results, but now new Pharmac funding is set to make it available to hundreds of women.

Women suffering an incurable form of breast cancer have been given “life-changing” hope now Pharmac intends to fund a wonder drug that extended patients’ life expectancies and reduced the risk of death by a third during clinical trials.

The proposed funding would grant women access to Trastuzumab deruxtecan, better known as Enhertu, a drug the Breast Cancer Foundation NZ said has shown “unprecedented results”.

The foundation said patients in Enhertu trials had their risk of death reduced by 27% and achieved 29 months where their cancer didn’t get worse, compared with 7.2 months on the current “second-line” treatment drug Kadcyla.

Mum Maggie Ngatai, 45, said her doctors had told her the new drug was the last option left in her battle with an aggressive form of breast cancer.

So Pharmac’s announcement it intends to fund the drug, subject to public consultation, instantly made her more hopeful for her future.

“When that news came through yesterday, I can’t overstate how life-changing it felt,” she said.

Breast Cancer Foundation NZ chief executive Ah-Leen Rayner applauded Pharmac for working “at speed” to approve proposed funding for the drug after the Government announced in June it would be giving the agency an extra $600 million to purchase more treatments for Kiwis.

She said the nation’s top breast cancer specialists had declared Enhertu to be one of the top three priorities for unfunded drugs in New Zealand.

“The clinical trials for it have generated a level of excitement not seen in breast cancer since the emergence of Herceptin 20 years ago,” she said.

Ngatai told the Herald in June she had been trying to raise $175,000 to privately fund one year of Enhertu treatment to give her more time to spend with her two children, aged 7 and 11.

Breast cancer patient Maggie Ngatai of Auckland with her daughters Claudia and Roxanne.

She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020. After being given the all-clear in 2021, the cancer returned a year later and is now incurable.

“The way the doctors talk about this drug, it’s the new miracle treatment and if I can get the money for it, it’s what will give me hope,” Ngatai said in June.

“There’s a chance for me to have longer with my girls, and I want to fight for that chance.”

Since then Ngatai’s Givealittle page had raised $80,000 to help fund treatment.

She told the Herald today she had now used private funds to undergo five rounds of treatment, which is given every three weeks, and the results had been “really hopeful and ... positive”.

“A scan has confirmed some really positive news,” Ngatai’s family wrote on her Givealittle page last week.

“The drug is meant to stop the growth of any cancer lesions or tumours, and even reduce them – and that’s exactly what’s happening.

“Several areas of cancer have reduced, there are no new lesions and things are looking stable – really, really brilliant news.”

The treatment’s successes so far had given the family a “huge lift”.

“It is a great relief to know that all Maggie’s efforts, and everything she is putting herself through is paying off.”

However, Ngatai said she had also recently run out of money to continue treatment.

The news Pharmac intended to step in to cover costs for an estimated 300 Kiwi women in the first year of proposed funding had reignited her hope.

“Yesterday morning I had a very uncertain future,” she said.

”With this latest announcement yesterday it is just life-changing, it’s game-changing, it’s life-extending.”

Ngatai said she’s unsure if she will be able to access funding immediately, allowing her to continue her treatment uninterrupted, or whether she will need to wait a short time. She is meeting with her oncologist next week to discuss the matter.

Officially, Pharmac intends to fund the medicine from January 1, next year, but she said she believed some patients might be able to access it earlier.

Pharmac opened public consultation on the funding yesterday and that will run through to October 7.

If the consultation identifies issues that require further consideration, the Pharmac team may need to seek further information and advice.

Following that process, the agency will make a final decision on the funding proposal.

When announcing the $600m funding boost for Pharmac in June, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti said it would include funding for 26 new cancer treatments.

That included covering seven of the 13 cancer drugs the National Party promised to fund during the election campaign, with the others replaced by “alternatives just as good or better”, Reti said.

According to the Breast Cancer Foundation New Zealand, one in nine New Zealand women are affected by the disease in their lifetimes.

Rayner said the proposed Enhertu funding was fantastic, with such ground-breaking treatments able to stop lives being cut short.

“If we can keep increasing access to new medicines like this, New Zealand can catch up with the rest of the world. Having more investment for medicines and faster approvals processes is what women with breast cancer need more of,” she said.