AU invests $57M for breakthrough drug Keytruda to grant affordable treatment of melanoma

The Australian Department of Health has announced that it would invest $57 million to the listing of the breakthrough medicine Keytruda to improve the quality of life of Australian patients suffering from melanoma. The listing will allow the patients to have more affordable access to the medicine under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, or PBS.

The government aims to give more than 1,000 local patients an affordable annual treatment which currently costs up to $150,000 per year. The current treatment using pembrolizumab or Keytruda has been costly to patients with metastatic melanoma, especially for those without the taxpayer subsidy through the PBS, according to the Department of Health.

With the new drug listing, a concessional patient will now pay $6.10, and the general patients will just pay $37.70 for the Keytruda drug. Keytruda is used to treat the most dangerous form of skin cancer, melanoma, when the disease has become lethal and any surgery is unable to remove the tumour, and if other medicines are no longer working against the disease.

Advanced melanoma requires immunotherapy as an option to fight the disease. The process of immunotherapy works with the immune system to help detect and fight cancer cells, instead of attacking cancer cells directly. Keytruda is a type of immunotherapy.

But it has not been determined yet by health authorities if the use of Keytruda is safe and effective in children less than 18 years old. With improper treatment, the drug can cause the immune system of people at any age to attack the healthy and normal organs and tissue in many areas of the body, which can be serious or life-threatening, experts say.

Complications in lungs, liver like hepatitis, hormone glands, as well as in the intestines, kidneys may occur because of the wrong treatment with Keytruda. Minor problems in other organs may also occur such as rash, changes in eyesight and muscle weakness.

The listing of Keytruda complements $1.3 billion from the 2015 to 2016 Budget for other melanoma medicines as well as drugs to treat breast cancer, blindness and shingles. With the new drug, there are already 742 approved new and amended listings to the PBS, with a benefit of $3.2 billion to Australian patients.

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