Cancer Control Agency accused of ‘flawed’ analysis of blood cancer drugs

The Cancer Control Agency is ignoring data showing the effectiveness of several blood cancer drugs that are free to Australian patients, a leading specialist says.

A government agency report last week identified 42 medicines funded in Australia, but not New Zealand, on January 1, although six have been covered since then.

Nine unfunded medicines showed “significant clinical benefit”.

However, consultant hematologist Dr Roger Tiedemann said the analysis was too limited as it only took into account data from registration trials, which compared the new treatment with the standard treatment.

‘These are of course very important studies, but things in medicine go further. As the years go by, we learn more about how these drugs work in combination with other treatments, whether they are effective in earlier stages of the disease, how they affect the disease. long-term survival.”

The agency’s analysis did not take that into account, he said.

“There are a number of medications that clearly have substantial clinical benefit for the patients I see that are not included in the report,” he said.

“So that shows me that the threshold and the analysis for doing this report is wrong, it’s just too basic.”

Each country’s health care system had to balance competing demands, he said.

‘The whole point of this report was to compare ourselves to Australia, and the report makes it very clear that the line we draw is a far cry from where our nearest neighbor draws the line.

“But they’ve done their analysis in a way that doesn’t reflect the reality that some of these drugs are very helpful for patients who have cancer.”

While government drug financing agency Pharmac had invested in a further six blood cancer drugs this year, Australia had also funded new drugs since then, he said.

“So the gap continues to widen. Yes, there are drugs we fund in New Zealand that aren’t funded in Australia – but they are largely outdated, we just let them continue because we have nothing else to bridge the gap. “

Rami Rahal, CEO of the Cancer Control Agency, said the agency used the internationally recognized ESMO Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale in the analysis, to be consistent with its previous report on solid tumor drugs.

“The tool is also designed for use in a policy environment that aligns with the overall objective of this analysis.

“However, the tool assesses the magnitude of clinical benefit in a very specific way.

“When Pharmac makes drug financing decisions, they integrate a range of factors to contribute to the decision-making, including consideration of the health benefit of the drug to the population.”

Drugs that don’t meet the assessment of “substantial magnitude of clinical benefit” can still be considered effective treatments for some patients, he added.

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