Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Dr Gareth Rivalland: Medical Oncologist and Melanoma Specialist on new Pharmac drug proposal

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Dr Gareth Rivalland: Medical Oncologist and Melanoma Specialist on new Pharmac drug proposal · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Farmac's looking at funding two new melanoma drugs though benefit
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: patients with late stage melanoma, saving the health system around
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: one thousand and fusion hours a year. They are out
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: for consultation. Doctor Gareth Rivland is with US medical oncologist
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and melanoma specialist.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Good morning, all, very much, good to have you here.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: What did these drugs do.
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  Speaker 2: So over the last fifteen years or so, Not that
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: we don't want to take you back too far, but
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: there's been a real change in the way we treat melanoma.
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  Speaker 2: So we don't use traditional chemotherapies. What we use are
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  Speaker 2: these immunotherapy drugs where we try to get the patient's
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: own immune system to recognize the cancer cells and attack them.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: And so these two drugs are in that group, and
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  Speaker 2: one of them effectively unmasked the cancer to allow the
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: immune system to see it, and the other drug effectively
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: cuts the tax on the immune system if you like,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: to allow it to run a lot harder, faster, earlier
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: and treatment. And so these two medications have been around
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: for a while, but the real change for us now
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  Speaker 2: we can use them before someone has surgery to allow
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: the immune system to see these cancer cells. Really early
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: and try to kill them off even before the surgeons
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: get there.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: And they must be used. Therefore they must be used together.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: You need to fund them both.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, this is where the state of the art is.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Really this is the best combination. So this is what
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  Speaker 2: we'd say is the global gold standard treatment. So when
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: you use this combination, you can do two treatment cycles
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  Speaker 2: before surgery, so that's six weeks of treatment and about
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: sixty percent of people will have the cancer completely killed
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: off before surgery. So this is quite a change and
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  Speaker 2: it really is better than any other combination or any
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  Speaker 2: other single drug that has been tested around the world.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Do they still need surgery?
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, well, that's where we're going next. You know, that's
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: where the trials are heading at the moment. We need
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: the surgery to be able to tell how well the
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: pavement's work. So, as I said, sixty percent of people
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  Speaker 2: in these trials look like that have what we call
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  Speaker 2: a complete pathologic response. That means that when the pathologists
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  Speaker 2: look at the slides, there's no cancer cells left. But
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  Speaker 2: that does leave forty percent who don't get that sort
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  Speaker 2: of response, and we need that understanding of what's happened
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  Speaker 2: on the microscopic level to decide what sort of treatment
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  Speaker 2: they might need sort of after surgery.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: I had a look at this this morning. It looked
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  Speaker 1: to me like these are being funded in Australia since
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. Is that I mean it sounds like revolutionary here,
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  Speaker 1: but is that true?
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  Speaker 2: Well, the original trials where we were looking at doing
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: treatment around surgery was in twenty eighteen. The treatment prior
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: to surgery, where effectively you leave the tumor in place
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: to you know, what you're is allowing the immune system
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: to see these cancer cells really early. That's a later development.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: They probably had that treatment in Australia only over the
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: last two or three years. The combination, as I say,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: which is the state of the art and was funded
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: in August last year in Australia, and in fact it
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  Speaker 2: isn't funded in the UK or Canada. I think are
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: in the process of rolling it out, but it's not
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: quite there. So actually we're a little ahead of the
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: curve on this one, which is unusual for FARMAC.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: First first time I've ever heard any doctor tell me that. Gareth,
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  Speaker 1: I appreciate your time this morning, doctor Garethrivaland who's a
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: medical oncologist and melanomas specialist for.
• 3:29
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