Pancreatic cancer treatment in Australia faces severe delays as patients confront a median 22-month wait to get new medicines listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, The New Daily reported.
The disease carries a five-year survival rate of just 14 per cent, with almost two-thirds of diagnosed patients dying within 12 months.
Sydney mother Danielle Ozolins survived major surgery, grueling chemotherapy, and a terminal diagnosis that initially gave her nine to 12 months to live. An experimental treatment provided through a clinical trial stabilised her cancer and gave her another year of life, allowing her to celebrate family milestones.
Ozolins criticized the lengthy regulatory process as medical treatment moves overseas.
“We don’t have two years,” Ozolins told The New Daily. “You know that drugs are available that could potentially give you a lot more time, but you cannot access them. That’s … it’s inhumane.”
More than 80 companies are currently developing treatments targeting the RAS pathway, a system of signals that tells cells when to grow and divide but drives cancer growth when faulty. Pankind Pancreatic Cancer Australia chief executive Michelle Stewart said treatment options have barely changed in three decades.
“If the first stages of treatment don’t work, there’s not a lot left to try,” Stewart told The New Daily, describing the emerging therapies as the beginning of a new era.
Tango Therapeutics and Revolution Medicines are testing a combination of daily pills, vopimetostat and daraxonrasib, in patients with an MTAP deletion, a genetic change found in up to 37 per cent of pancreatic cancer patients, USA Today reported.
In patients whose cancer outlasted earlier treatment, 82 per cent saw their tumors shrink, and 88 per cent were still alive with no sign of disease progression nine months in, according to USA Today. Meanwhile, the standalone targeted therapy daraxonrasib was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in August and is sold as Rasonque, with a median progression-free time of about seven months.
In Australia, incoming treatments face high price tags that complicate public subsidy decisions. Medical oncologist Michael Lee said that anticipated costs could exceed $400,000 per patient. Lee explained that while melanoma treatments transformed survival rates over the past decade—costing the government about half a billion dollars annually—pancreatic cancer therapies often extend survival by months rather than years.
“The healthcare dollars do only stretch so far … [the government] has to cut the line somewhere,” Lee told The New Daily. “Unfortunately for pancreatic cancer, it lands on the wrong side of the fence.”
Pankind is urging the federal government to implement recommendations from its 2024 Health Technology Assessment Review to accelerate access to promising treatments that address urgent unmet needs. Advocacy remains difficult because pancreatic cancer patients often lack the time to campaign.
“For our pancreatic folks, they may not be here in a year’s time, and you’re asking your loved one to keep opening their wound and just to advocate for other people,” Lee told The New Daily. “There’s only so much goodwill one is able to sustain.”
“We die waiting,” Ozolins told The New Daily.
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