'Exciting new immune therapy' in the news

July 7, 2015

Article highlights

Featuring the effect of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in the treatment of a patient from Taranaki with stage 4 melanoma, the article explains that this and other immune-checkpoint inhibitors “are being fast-tracked into clinical use around the world”. At present in New Zealand, Keytruda is available “only through clinical trials, on compassionate grounds, or for an extremely expensive $120,000-200,000 a year, with dosages calculated on weight”.

Those featured in the article who comment on the “revolutionary” potential of these new drugs, known as PD-1 pathway inhibitors, include University of Auckland’s Professor Rod Dunbar, a cancer immunologist and director of the Maurice Wilkins Centre; Merck Sharp & Dohme’s New Zealand director, Paul Smith; Northern Cancer Network’s director and principal investigator on two lung cancer trials of anti-PD-1s Dr Richard Sullivan; and, the Auckland medical oncologist Dr George Laking, who also is a member of the clinical advisory committee (PTAC) of Pharmac - New Zealand’ drug funding agency. Dr Laking is reported as having “thought deeply about the tension between his perspective as a clinician and as an adviser to Pharmac”, having to consider not only “the good of his patients” but also “the gain for a few from a high-priced medicine” that must be “set against the greater good”.

Source:
New Zealand Listener. July 11-17 2015. http://www.listener.co.nz/archive/july-11-2015/