I presume this (in The Australian today) is also a good omen…...

I presume this (in The Australian today) is also a good omen…
PBS listing for ‘Australian success story’ blood cancer drug

SARAH ISON
A pill that removes the need for chemotherapy for some cancer sufferers has been put on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and is expected to drastically improve the lives of people suffering from one of the rarest forms of blood cancer.

Called Waldenstrom Macroglobulinemia, the cancer is detected in about 90 Australians every year but unlike other cancers, it rarely goes into remission.

Traditional treatment includes chemotherapy and in some cases stem cell transplants, with new drugs like Brukinsa costing more than $100,000 a year or available only through clinical trials.

The Albanese government on Friday announced it would put Brukinsa on the PBS, making it the first targeted therapy to be listed for treatment of WM.

Monash University professor of haematology Constantine Tam, who led the clinical trials for Brukinsa out of Melbourne, said the drug – taken as a pill twice a day – had a “profound impact” on patients.

“Brukinsa is an Australian success story … the initial tests … on humans were done in Melbourne by myself and three colleagues, who treated the first 25 patients in the world,” he said. “There were remarkable outcomes for people who were destined to die.

“These Australian patients showed the drug can work, and it will go on to impact not only Australian lives but lives around the world.”

In the US, about 1000 to 1500 people are diagnosed with the cancer each year, which translates to an incidence rate of three cases per million people annually.

Unlike chemotherapy, which is notorious for attacking the whole body, Brukinsa works by targeting proteins that help grow the cancer and essentially “cuts off the lifeline” to the disease.

Melbourne-based Kayleen Lockwood, 54, was diagnosed more than a decade ago with WM when her daughter was just seven months old. “It’s hard to bond with a child when you think you’re going to die,” she said.

She was put on Brukinsa as part of the trial and said she got her life back: “It’s like any other manageable disease now.”