Blinded By The Hype

As new treatments become ever more expensive and the population ages, experts are warning that the “train of affordable cancer care” is about to crash off the tracks.

- Donna Chisholm

David Downs remembers many things about the hour-long infusion of cells that saved his life. The little things, such as the surprising taste of creamed corn as the 3.7ml of genetically engineered tumour-fighting cells were infused into the port in his chest. And the big things: the results of the scan just 28 days later that detected no sign of the cancer he’d been told was terminal.

It was February last year, and Downs had become the first international patient on a clinical trial of a new immunotherapy at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital. It’s called CAR T-cell therapy, in which doctors extracted and genetically engineered his own tumour-fighting cells so they could recognise and attack the cancer cells that were killing him.

In New Zealand, he’d been told nothing more could be done for him after four failed attempts at chemotherapy to treat his lymphoma. But Downs – an actor and comedian with a public profile – is “lucky”; his weekly blog about his “mild touch of the cancer” was picked up by national news website stuff.co.nz. The first post attracted 120,000 readers and was shared by patient groups around the world. Late in 2017, one of the 40-odd instalments reached the LinkedIn inbox of Pfizer’s New York-based chief development officer, inflammation and immunology, Michael Corbo, who connected him with the Boston trial group.

Downs was initially told the treatment would cost $1.5 million, a sum that would have put it out of the reach of most people. Downs, however, owned a house he could sell, had life insurance that could be cashed in because doctors said he was dying, and had a group of friends who set up a Givealittle page that raised nearly $150,000. For a man of 47 with a wife, Katherine, and three teenaged sons, it was a price he was willing to pay.