Te Whatu Ora will block 20 to 30 patients from receiving Keytruda until the drug is funded by Pharmac on October 1.
The drug company, Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD), has been working on an early access scheme whereby eligible patients can be referred by oncologists and receive the medication for free.
Keytruda has been called a ‘miracle drug’ and will be funded to treat five cancers - head and neck, triple negative breast, colorectal, bladder and Hodgkin lymphoma.
The decision by Health New Zealand means patients diagnosed over the next two months will be given less effective treatments, which will then make them ineligible to receive Keytruda when available.
“This has to be the cruellest and dumbest decision made by Health New Zealand to date,” Patient Voice Aotearoa chair Malcolm Mulholland says.
He says this means patients with terminal cancer will be denied free ‘best-in-class’ treatment, which takes less infusion time compared to other treatments. He says this is a result of Health New Zealand’s inability to plan.
Early access schemes have existed in the past without problems and last year Keytruda was funded for 150 lung cancer patients.
“What this proves is that New Zealand must have one of the most dysfunctional health systems in the world,” Mulholland says.
“By not having those discussions ahead of time, we are continuing to fail society’s most vulnerable.”
Health New Zealand / Te Whatu Ora has been contacted for comment.