Posted by Michael Wonder on 28 Jun 2016
Cancer patients get another option with PHARMAC eyeing funding for Keytruda
28 June 2016 - Melanoma patients are likely to get a second drug treatment option under a new proposal to provide state funding of Keytruda.
PHARMAC, the Government's drug funding agency, has today issued a consultation document proposing to pay for Keytruda from September 1.
This follows PHARMAC's earlier decision to fund Keytruda' rival Opdivo from this Friday. Both are high-cost cancer drugs in a new class of immunotherapy medicines, called PD-1 inhibitors which are extending the lives of some advanced-melanoma patients who have no other treatment options.
PHARMAC says in the consultation notice on its website that it has "now reached a commercially favourable provisional agreement" with the maker of Keytruda (pembrolizumab), Merck Sharp and Dohme, and is seeking feedback on the proposal, which also involves two other drugs.
