MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: Thanks very much for coming out this morning to the Royal Adelaide Hospital here in Adelaide for a really exciting announcement of a new breakthrough treatment for women with breast cancer. I can’t imagine a better time to do this as we head into Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October starting on Wednesday. I’m here with Associate Professor Nick Murray, an oncologist working here at the Royal Adelaide and elsewhere in Adelaide, particularly with breast cancer and gynaecological cancer, and I’m also delighted that Kim Dyer has joined us from Sydney, a patient who has been taking the medicine I’m about to talk about.
Our strong Medicare, terrific healthcare system rests on a number of pillars and none is more important than our medicine system. The PBS for eight decades now has provided access for Australian patients to the best medicines anywhere in the world at affordable prices and we have two key pillars to our medicines policy as a government. The first is to list as many new, cutting-edge medicines on the PBS as we possibly can and since we came to government, we are now well over 350 new or amended listings on the PBS, making sure that it’s up to date, it’s cutting-edge and it’s giving access to the best possible medicines from anywhere in the world. The second, of course, is to make those PBS scripts cheaper. Already our cheaper medicines policies have delivered about $1.5 billion in savings to Australian patients when they go to their pharmacy counter to buy the medicines, collect the medicines that their doctors have said are important for their health, and on the 1st of January, we’ll make medicines even cheaper by bringing the maximum cost of a PBS script down to just $25 which is the same price it was way back in 2004. And for pensioners and concession cardholders, their PBS prices will be frozen for the rest of the decade.
But today, I am delighted to announce a new very important listing on the PBS that takes effect on the 1st of October or Wednesday this week, and that is a new listing, first time listing for a drug called TRUQAP. This is a drug sponsored by AstraZeneca and is a cutting-edge treatment for particular types of advanced or metastatic breast cancer, particularly for patients with HR positive, HER2 negative forms of breast cancer which I’m told accounts for about 70 per cent of all breast cancer cases. Breast cancer is still the most common cancer among Australian women, also rarely impacts Australian men as well but it does impact men too. About 60 Australian women will be diagnosed with breast cancer on average every single day and although we have world leading survival rates for breast cancer, if that breast cancer becomes advanced or particularly metastatic then the survivability is much lower than breast cancer survival rates more broadly. We think that only about one in three women with metastatic breast cancer will go on to survive five years or more. Finding new effective treatments for women with metastatic breast cancer is a particular priority of sponsors, of the breast cancer stakeholders and of government in particular. This new listing, TRUQAP, will provide that additional hope we think to about 3,000 women and a few men as well every single year, making a very big dent in some of the challenges we have around the survivability and quality of life for women with metastatic breast cancer.
I’m going to ask Professor Murray to outline a couple of the key clinical factors of this but I just will say this, that without the PBS listing, this highly effective drug would cost patients about $100,000 for a course of treatment, but from Wednesday it will be available, as I said, according to the company, to as many as 3,000 patients every year at cheap, affordable PBS prices which, as I said, will become even cheaper from the 1st of January. I’ll hand over now to Professor Murray, and then we’ll hear from Kim.
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DR NICK MURRAY, ONCOLOGIST: Thank you, Minister. It’s really exciting to be here today. It’s really exciting to know that from Wednesday next week, we’ll have yet another wonderful drug for the treatment of breast cancer. We are so lucky in Australia to have such a fantastic healthcare system that delivers medicines so effectively to people. TRUQAP is something I've been involved in the research to a very small extent, but it's something that we've been waiting for a few months now, and I certainly have patients who are ready to go later this week with this new drug which will enable them to delay more toxic treatments, chemotherapy treatments, hopefully for many, many months, and that's just fantastic. And I’ll hand over now to Kim.
KIM DYER, PATIENT: Hi. Thank you very much. My name is Kim, and I'm a mum of two adult children. I've been on this cancer journey now with metastatic breast cancer for nearly four years, so to have this fantastic drug available to help me and so many other women, well, people, not women, not just women, as we know it happens to men as well, to help it be affordable and to have another treatment pathway is just fantastic. Being Australian and having this on the PBS I just can't say how grateful it is for people like myself.
I was first diagnosed in 2011 with early stage breast cancer, and I had lumpectomy chemotherapy followed by radiation. Then I had a good nearly 10 years or so taking a hormone suppressant, but I was basically like cancer free for a good 10 years or so. Then in 2022, I got diagnosed again with metastatic breast cancer. I's very confronting to have that diagnosis. Most people that get a diagnosis, you have to certainly reset your life, your values. It's a huge trajectory that you then have to embark on and having treatments available to you and options is just great. It gives a bit of hope. It lets you know that you can progress forward with a lot more hope in your mind. For me personally, being on these new drugs and having the TRUQAP, it's buying time. I was able to attend my daughter's wedding, which when they first announced it was a good year or so away, and there was that point where we thought, am I going to make it? Am I going to be around for that wedding? I've got a very supportive family. My kids are supportive. My wider family are supportive. I've got a lot of good, supportive friends. Having that with me, but also knowing that there's so many other treatments available, gave me hope that I would be able to make the wedding and as it turned out, I did. I was dancing at that wedding, so it fills you with hope and a brighter future, because it's not a great diagnosis to have.
For many, many people that are diagnosed with this, it's just fantastic to have so many opportunities and different treatments, because everything works differently for different people, and it just provides much better options for you. So that's great.
I particularly want to thank the healthcare teams that are all involved in this, because I'm one person that has this, but the repercussions are on all my family. I've got, as I say, very supportive family and just that my general GP, my oncologist, my breast care nurse that looks after me. To have all that support is wonderful. Where I have my treatment, all the support you get from the people there, the nurses and the staff, is just fantastic. To have this sort of put more in the limelight and more out in the open because there's a huge acknowledgement of early stage breast cancer, but to bring metastatic breast cancer out into the open and shine more light on that is beneficial because a lot of people that struggle with metastatic breast cancer have treatment available to them because of this. AstraZeneca putting drugs out, the Government putting the drugs out for us, it just opens the door for just wonderful treatment too. It gives hope, gives hope. The more support, the better, and I think putting much more limelight on the metastatic breast cancer side of things is really helpful, because we're so aware of early stage breast cancer and to bring it forward into the arena that people can understand that this is a disease, and unfortunately, it comes back to bite you when you have breast cancer. To have the metastatic breast cancer side of things illuminated brings it to the table for people to talk about, and it gives us more opportunities and better networks for people that have it. I'm aware I have such good family support and friends, but some people don't have access to that. Just if there's more opportunities for it to be better known, there's more information out there, there's more connections that can be made, and that can mean so much, so very helpful to people dealing with this situation.
JOURNALIST: With it being Breast Cancer Awareness next month, how good is this timing for the new PBS listing, and as you were saying, bringing more awareness to metastatic cancer, breast cancer?
DYER: Timing for me is fantastic because I've only just gone on it which has been a financial burden. To have it on PBS is just brilliant. It levels the playing field. It just means everyone can access this drug which is great.
JOURNALIST: Just the timing of Breast Cancer Awareness Month?
DYER: The fact that it has come out now during Breast Cancer Awareness Month that's just brilliant as well. There's no negatives to this, to have the access to this drug is fantastic. All the people that do the research, that the AstraZeneca were lobbying the Government to get put on the PBS. It's just fantastic. And the Government, of course, for putting it out there for us.
JOURNALIST: How much have you been paying for TRUQAP prior to this?
DYER: It’s thousands and thousands of dollars, so it's expensive. They did have a co-payment with it, which basically halved the price which was great but it's thousands of dollars, and not everybody can do that. That's why, as I say, I was lucky that I was in a position to be able to pay for it but how long is a piece of string? How long can you keep that sort of payment up? And for people like myself, facing the trauma of having a disease which sort of puts a cap on your life, in some regards, it's very helpful. You don't need another financial stress while you're struggling with cancer. The less stress you can have about worrying about things like that, the better. To have this available, it's just brilliant.
JOURNALIST: How long have you been on it for?
DYER: For me, it's only been about three months, three and a half months.
JOURNALIST: And how have you found it?
DYER: I've been on chemo before so for me, personally, it's been fabulous because I've got my better taste in my mouth. I'm enjoying my cup of tea which for me is really important. Food in general, yes.
JOURNALIST: Yeah, prior to TRUQAP, you mentioned that you've tried chemo before. What sort of symptoms did you have with other medications compared to TRUQAP now?
DYER: For me personally, the tasting was the main thing. To have to have my taste buds back is great, but look, it's so varied and I won't go into some of the details, I'd rather not, but yes, it can certainly cause havoc with your system, put it that way. I've had a fair bit of weight loss as well. But for me personally, the main thing is, I love my food. It's a very social thing to be with someone eating and drinking. So to have my taste buds back has been great.
JOURNALIST: I know it's only been a short while. It's been three months, but would you say that the effects of TRUQAP are a bit gentler to the body?
DYER: Absolutely. I mean, when I was having chemo because I was also trying to keep my hair, when I would go and have my treatment, which was every three weeks, it would take a good five hours or so of the day that I'd go. And so I can take tablets at home it coincides with having some injections that I get once a month to help it work together, the Fulvestrant that is, and it just saves all that time so I can just take my tablets at home, and then once a month get my injection.
JOURNALIST: This is effectively replacing chemo for you?
DYER: It is, it is, and it's giving me that time back, and that freedom and the ease of just being able to take a couple of tablets at home in the morning and in the evening makes that much, much more pleasant.
JOURNALIST: Does it give you some peace of mind going forward?
DYER: It does. I think it gives hope to people. As I say, it's very daunting when you get a diagnosis that sort of puts a limit on your life, like we all know we're going to live and die, but you don't really want someone to go it might happen sooner rather than later. It gives hope for longer time, and I might, hopefully I'll see more milestones in my life with my kids and things like that. It makes you appreciate and enjoy your family and the relationships more things like that.
JOURNALIST: How old are you, Kim?
DYER: I'm 64.
JOURNALIST: Lovely. So when you were diagnosed, you were in your 50s?
DYER: I had my fabulous 50s and then got my diagnosis, which was bit disappointing. Not what I was expecting. So yes, fabulous 50. And then got my first diagnosis of breast cancer. And then, unfortunately, yes, my 60s wasn't much better. I turned 61 in hospital because I had to have a spinal fusion because the cancer had returned into my spine. I had surgery so I sort of thought these milestone birthdays weren't working for me. But I think, wow, I'm still here. And I'm still here because of these great drugs. The chemotherapy I was on prior to TRUQAP was also put on the PBS, particularly when I needed it as well. So that, again, saved a whole lot of money, and it just meant that those options, I was on that for a good year.
JOURNALIST: So, you've timed well with all the PBS listings?
DYER: I have, which, yes, worked really well.
JOURNALIST: Could you please explain with TRUQAP, I know it's still quite early, but how has it improved patients’ prognoses?
MURRAY: People who go on to TRUQAP tend to stay on that drug for quite a significant length of time longer than they did before we had it, when we were just using the drug Fulvestrant or chemo alone and they do seem to live some months longer. It's a very, very variable thing. You never know when someone starts a medication whether it's going to work really well for them or not at all. But more people live longer with this drug.
JOURNALIST: I just wanted to ask you about the cost of this script as well, if you could just speak briefly on that?
BUTLER: For concession card holders, this would be about $7.70 per script and that price will be frozen for the rest of the decade. The people without a concession card, you'll go from potentially having to pay $100,000 for a course of treatment of TRUQAP down to paying $31 a script for a monthly script, and that price will reduce even further to $25 from the 1st of January.
JOURNALIST: It's been a few days since Donald Trump announced tariffs on pharmaceutical products. Does the Federal Government now have a clearer picture of the implications on this announcement for Australia?
BUTLER: We're still seeking further detail about that. As I've said a couple of times before publicly, the vast bulk of our pharmaceutical exports to the US are blood and plasma products. It's not clear that they are captured by the scope of the announcement the US President made this week. Also, as people know, there is an exemption on tariffs if a company involved was in the process of making capital investment in the US, our big exporter of blood and plasma products says that they are doing that as well. It's not clear that this is going to have a huge impact on our sector. Obviously, there will be some companies captured by it, and there are still small start-ups who seek to export their new medicines to the US because it's such an important platform for global exposure, they may well be hit. I'm not saying there's nothing in this, but we are trying to understand the exact scope and impact of it a little better.
JOURNALIST: So some companies might be captured by it. Is it going to start costing more to have their medicines on the PBS?
BUTLER: No, because these are medicines being exported to the US. With the exception of the blood plasma products exporter, most of them are relatively small start-ups seeking to get a leg up into the global market. It won't have an impact directly on medicine prices for Australian consumers. As I said, there's a broader review, I guess, of medicines policy underway by the US Administration, particularly the potential impact of most favoured nations pricing for the US market is going to have significant implications, not just for Australia, but for every other country in the world and we're seeking to understand and prepare for that. But as I've said time and time again, none of this is going to lead us to do anything other than fully defend the PBS, those core elements I talked about earlier of ensuring access to the best cutting edge medicines from around the world at affordable prices.
JOURNALIST: Have you or anyone in Government been able to speak to the US Government about this decision?
BUTLER: There are obviously very regular discussions happening between our Government, both at the ministerial level. Minister Farrell was in Malaysia and only over the last several days, our officials are in regular discussion, particularly out of the embassy in Washington, DC. I'm talking regularly with the Ambassador Kevin Rudd, to ensure that we understand as much as we possibly can about the US Administration's intentions in medicines. There is very regular engagement, and frankly, has been, really since the start of the review of trade policy, if I can call it that, by the US Administration.
It's important to point out, of course, that that in a broad economy sense, Australia has been levied with the lowest tariff rate on offer by the US. A 10 per cent general tariff rate is the lowest any country has been levied with since the US Administration made this change, and obviously in relation to pharmaceuticals, where we're determined to try and protect our exporters as much as possible. We're making the case to the US Administration as often as we possibly can that it's in both of our interests, in both of our countries interest, to continue the tariff free trade that's characterised our trading relations since 2004 where both countries signed the US Free Trade Agreement.
JOURNALIST: Have you spoken to Kevin Rudd or any of those other parties specifically about this policy, or has it just been more about the US Administration in general and their views on health policy?
BUTLER: No, we've been engaging regularly about pharmaceuticals over the last period of time for at least a few months, since the US Administration started to make its intentions clear about pharmaceutical trade.
JOURNALIST: And will this be one of the key issues you hope Anthony Albanese will discuss when he meets with you as President Donald Trump next month?
BUTLER: There will be a broad range of issues that our Prime Minister will obviously seek to raise with the US President. This is going to be a very important meeting, and frankly, I think it will be better for our country to have had that meeting in isolation from the hustle and bustle of the leaders’ week at the UN that took place over recent days. There's plenty on the agenda. There always is between an Australian Prime Minister and the US President. Our interests overlap very significantly. There'll be a lot of security discussion. I'm sure AUKUS will be something that I'm confident the Prime Minister will obviously want to have a discussion with the US President about and trade, more broadly, I'm sure will be as well.
JOURNALIST: So, should they say on the agenda?
BUTLER: I'm certainly not going to be seeking to tell the Prime Minister what should be on his agenda. He knows very much what Australia's national interest is, and the best way to prosecute that with all world leaders. You've seen that over recent days, and I'm sure you'll see it on the 20th of October, when it sits down with the American President. Thanks everyone.