Healthy Skepticism Library item: 3866

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Cook T.
Saskatchewan government nixes funding for expensive cancer drug Avastin
Canadian Press 2006 Mar 9
http://aol.mediresource.com/channel_health_news_details.asp?news_id=9480&news_channel_id=12&channel_id=12

Notes:

Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:

One of the problems with many recently developed drugs is that they are both incredibly expensive and of limited value.
This creates a dilema for health system funders.
To pay or not to pay?

Full text:

Saskatchewan government nixes funding for expensive cancer drug Avastin

Mar. 9, 2006

Provided by: Canadian Press

Written by: TIM COOK

REGINA (CP) – The Saskatchewan government will not pay for a cutting-edge but expensive drug used to treat advanced colorectal cancer. The decision leaves dozens of terminally ill patients worried that their lives will be cut even shorter by the disease.

While Avastin may add a few months to the lives of those suffering, it is not a cure and, from a public standpoint, the costs outweigh the benefits, Health Minister Len Taylor said Thursday.

“There is no guarantee that anything happens other than the possibility of an extension by one to five months of life,” Taylor said.

“This decision, as difficult as it is, is based on the safety and security of the individual and on the sustainability of the system.”

Governments across the country have been wrestling with the issue of costs versus benefits attached to promising new drugs. High-tech treatments routinely crop up at prices which threaten to break the health-care bank.

Still, Taylor’s explanation was almost too much to bear for cancer patient Terry Rak and his wife, Marj.

The Saskatoon couple was told in July 2004 that Rak had, at most, two years to live. Avastin is his last hope.

“It means spending time with my family, my kids. Hopefully children get married. I become a grandpa,” he said.

“Please, Mr. Government, pay for it.”

His wife said she feels duped by the system.

“We really thought universal health care was for everybody,” she said. “We really feel cheated and deceived.”

Provincial figures show the intravenously administered drug costs about $36,000 per course of treatment. Funding it would add nearly $6 million to the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency’s $25-million drug budget. Right now, between 80 and 100 people in the province would benefit.

Taylor did say that, should anyone want to put up the cash themselves, the government would allow doctors in the public health system to administer the drug.

The Raks said they will do that, although Terry worries about depleting the family’s savings.

Having patients pay adds a whole new layer to the debate.

The Opposition evoked the memory of Tommy Douglas, the five-term Saskatchewan premier credited with being the father of public medicare.

“Tommy Douglas’s premise was that health-care drugs shouldn’t be related to your ability to pay or to your geography,” said Saskatchewan Party member Dan D’Autremont. “I think this is a real betrayal of the system.”

But Taylor said having patients pay for their own drugs is not without precedent.

“Thirty per cent of the health-care system is provided privately, whether that is dental offices or buying prescription drugs.”

Avastin is approved for use by Health Canada and was recommended by the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, provided there was a funding increase.

But Taylor is quick to point out that provinces have been slow to get on board, including Ontario and Prince Edward Island, where Avastin is neither approved nor funded.

British Columbia covers the drug on an interim basis pending a decision by its government, while Quebec and New Brunswick offer limited coverage.

Taylor left the door open to funding Avastin should the cost come down or should it prove more beneficial.

But Bob Loeppky, a colorectal cancer patient from Swift Current, Sask., who has been lobbying to get the drug, doesn’t figure he will be around then.

“I don’t know how you measures cost against spending time with your family and grandchildren . . . It gets to be a very emotional issue.”