PESHAWAR: Two multinational pharmaceutical companies have promised to supply anti-cancer drugs for the government’s free treatment programme at old rates, saying they won’t charge 15 per cent hike allowed for drug prices.

Novartis Pharma, which supplies 80 per cent of the drugs to patients being treated under the Free Cancer Treatment Programme at the Hayatabad Medical Complex, has given a written assurance to the authorities concerned that it would provide medicines on the previous rates and there will be no increase in the price.

“The initiative will benefit poor patients. We will be able to extend free treatment services to more patients. After price hike, there was an issue that less patients would be treated compared to last year but the company has given us the written assurance of supplying drugs at old rates,” head of the HMC Oncology Department Prof Abid Jamil told Dawn.

HMC official hails initiative saying it will benefit poor patients

He said another drug-maker, Roche, had verbal held out a similar commitment for the HMC patients.

Prof Abid said both companies were the main suppliers of anti-cancer drugs to the hospital for patients, who were registered regardless of their financial status.

He said the companies specialised in the manufacturing of anti-cancer drugs.

“We have been purchasing drugs in bulk from pharmaceutical firms at 50 per cent less rates than the market’s, which benefit more patients.

The treatment of cancer is very expensive and 95 per cent patients can’t afford it. Some require lifelong medication,” he said.

The head of the HMC oncology department said 70-80 types of medicines were required bulk of which came from the two manufacturers in question, while the rest was purchased from smaller companies.

He said the commitment given out by the companies was big relief for poor patients.

“Since the launch of the programme in 2011, 40,000 patients have been provided free treatment for blood and general types of cancer,” he said.

Prof Abid said the government had approved a three-year programme from June 2019 to 2022 under which Rs24 billion would be spent on the treatment of blood cancer patients.

He said of the amount, Rs2.4 billion would come from the government, while the rest would be paid by the government under the cost-sharing arrangement with Novartis Pharma.

“There are two free programmes, one for blood cancer and another for general cancers. A Rs4.9 billion PC-I has been approved for continuation of both. For blood cancer, Novartis pays 90 per cent and the government 10 per cent of the treatment cost,” he said.

The head of the HMC oncology department said the department had planned to provide free services to 6,000 patients of general and blood cancers in the next three years.

“For the first time, we have included breast cancer patients in the programme due to high incidence,” he said.

Prof Abid said the number of patients was increasing every year due to increase in awareness of free treatment and that the government wanted to expand facilities to other districts to provide services to the people in own areas.

“We are in the process of imparting training to doctors, who can be deployed in district hospitals. Besides offering free treatment to patients, we have also been holding workshops for the doctors at the district hospitals and thus, causing patient referrals to improve,” he said.

The head of the HMC oncology department said more and more cancer patients were coming to the hospital to seek treatment in early stages due to strong advocacy, which promised better chances of treatment.

He said survival rate among such patients was 88 per cent.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2019