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Women's struggles with cancer will be much tougher following Pharmac's decision not to fund 12-month courses of the breast cancer drug Herceptin, charity Skip for Life says. Pharmac, the Government's drug-buying agency, said yesterday a fresh review of scientific and other information had failed to convince it that 12-month treatments for early stage breast cancer offered any additional benefits over the nine-week treatment. "We don't know which one is better -- 12 months or nine weeks," chief executive Matthew Brougham told a press conference in Wellington. Pharmac currently funds nine-week courses of Herceptin. Skip For Life founder Jacqueline Harrison said she was disappointed with the outcome but continues to hope that once more evidence on drugs targeting the HER-2 aggressive form of cancer became available from clinical... [read full story]
