A WOMAN forced to choose between accessing a breast cancer drug and moving back to be near family in Scotland has urged Holyrood to help patients.
Dunise MacIver was working in London when doctors diagnosed her with secondary-stage breast cancer last year.
The Inverness woman was told she would not receive the drug she needed on the NHS if she returned to her home town.
Doctors identified pertuzumab as the best treatment for the 35-year-old, but although the medicine is available in England under a cut-price deal with manufacturer Roche, the Scottish Medicines Consortium last summer concluded it was too expensive to be made available through NHS Scotland.
The Swiss drug company has set the price of the drug, also known as Perjeta, at around £43,900 for a year’s treatment.
MacIver is now amongst patients launching a campaign to urge the Scottish Government to take steps to remedy the situation.
The Just Treatment campaign wants Holyrood to bring in a Crown Use Licence to reduce the cost of the drug. The measure would overturn Roche’s patent, allowing other manufacturers to make and sell it at a lower price.
MacIver said: “The fact I had to make this kind of choice really upset me and made me think of how things could have been different if I hadn’t moved to England.
“It highlighted to me the stark reality of inequalities in the UK health system and how simply where you live can impact your health and your length of life. It is wrong that some people get offered better choices of treatment due to where they live, and this inequality must stop.
“No-one should have a price tag on their life.”
Fellow campaigner Kirsty Howard used savings and the help of close family to buy a £10,500 three-dose course of pertuzumab. The 34-year-old received her diagnosis at the Western General in Edinburgh last October. She said: “It makes me so angry that for all the money that goes into research for new life-saving drugs, the drug companies then completely over-price the drugs, making them unaffordable to the NHS and many individuals.
“It defeats the point of all the important research in the first place if the drugs will sit on the shelf due to the cost. This is why Just Treatment’s campaign is so important, so that other women do not need to go through the additional stress and upset that I did.”
In February Baroness Delyth Morgan, chief executive at Breast Cancer Now, called for Roche and the devolved nations to agree deals to “see Perjeta made routinely available in those parts of the UK for the very first time”.
Responding to the new campaign, the Scottish Government said: “A diagnosis of cancer can be devastating and we appreciate the importance of having loved ones nearby to provide support.
“Decisions made by the Scottish Medicines Consortium are independent of ministers and parliament. Changes made by the Scottish Government in recent years has resulted in greatly improved access to new medicines – particularly for cancer – and we are keen that this continues.
“It is important that pharmaceutical companies ensure that they offer medicines at a fair and transparent price to allow patients in Scotland to get access to the breast cancer treatments they need.”
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