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Montana News: Montana Cancer Drug Repository
Reprinted from the October 2009 Montana Board of Pharmacy Newsletter.
Dear Montana Pharmacists,
On October 1, a new law went into effect that will help cancer patients get cancer drugs they cannot afford, help cancer centers better treat patients, and distribute thousands of dollars worth of unused medication to patients instead of destroying needed drugs. The new law establishes a cancer drug donation program, possible only through the expertise and generosity of Montana pharmacists.
In the last legislative session, House Bill 409 established a way for unused, unopened cancer drugs to be donated to participating pharmacies and dispensed to qualifying patients. The program will make available unused cancer drugs to cancer patients who otherwise could not attain them, almost always because of the astronomical cost of the drugs.
Montana pharmacists are the crux of this program. For drug donation to be successful, pharmacists knowledgeable in dosage, drug interaction, chemical structure, and effect of cancer drugs are the people who will accept and dispense cancer drugs.
The need for this new program is intense. Cancer drugs are among the most expensive pharmaceuticals on the market, and they do wondrous things: they target cancer cells to kill cancer, target the interactions between cancer cells and the host (the patient), and help with nausea from chemotherapy. Cancer drugs can also prompt the development of red blood cells, and help with a patient’s energy level. But these drugs are expensive, often prohibitively expensive, and a drug is only good if it can be administered.
In testimony in the House committee in February, Dr Jack Hensold of the Bozeman Deaconess Cancer Center said that, “new cancer therapies are, without exception, very expensive, ranging from $3,000 to $9,000 in monthly costs. Since nearly all the oral chemotherapies are subject to ‘co-pays,’ all patients, independent of their insurance coverage, are placed at significant financial risk when diagnosed with cancer.” Dr Hensold also said that, “within the first month of treatment, [a patient] will be liable for a $5,000 payment for their drug.
There is very strong support for the cancer drug donation law. The executive director of the Montana Board of Pharmacy, Ron Klein, testified in support of the cancer drug donation law, as did pharmaceutical manufacturers and representatives of the Montana Medical Association, the Billings Clinic, and the Bozeman Deaconess Cancer Center.
Most importantly, patients testified in support. One patient said that she was grateful that the hearing was this year and not the previous session, because she was undergoing chemotherapy then and was bald. She appeared before the House committee with a packet of medication she wished to donate. It is an anti-nausea drug to which she developed a resistance. The drug did not work for her after two months, but she had bought a three-month supply. The remaining medication is worth many hundreds of dollars. The expiration date is 2011. She wishes to donate the drug to a patient who could use it now. She said, “it’s hundreds and hundreds of dollars in my medicine cabinet. I can’t bring myself to flush it down the toilet. Someone should use these!”
In the Senate hearings, a woman testified that she had been an office administrator for an oncologist for 20 years and saw the need firsthand. Four years ago, her husband, a former firefighter, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and underwent treatment monthly. One of his prescribed medications, Velcade®, cost $7,000 a month for 21 pills. Another of his drugs cost a co-pay of $4,295 a month; another cost more than $6,000 a month.
It is difficult enough to face a diagnosis of cancer. Patients who want to fight cancer but who may not have all the means – financial or pharmaceutical – to fully fight their diagnosis of cancer now have a chance to receive drugs from the new cancer drug donation program.
In its meeting in early October, the Montana Board of Pharmacy will establish rules to implement the cancer drug donation program, determine which drugs to accept and dispense, and establish qualifications for patients to participate. Cancer centers and cancer patients are anxiously waiting for the program to begin.
In Montana, the spirit of helping one another is strong. We are resilient people. There is no reason for effective cancer drugs to be wasted or destroyed for want of a process to make them available to the people who need them.
For those with cancer drugs to donate, and for the patients who desperately need the drugs, pharmacists bridge the gap. Please participate in the new cancer drug donation program.
JP Pomnichowski, Montana State Representative
House District 63, Bozeman/Gallatin County
pomnicho@montanadsl.net, 406/587-7846
