Avastin fight now moves to P.E.I.

A cancer patient who successfully helped lobby the New Brunswick government to fund an expensive cancer drug is now shifting his focus to P.E.I. in an effort to have Avastin funded by that province.

P.E.I. is the only province that does not cover Avastin — a medication that helps fight colorectal cancer — under its drug plans.

Andrew Goodridge, of Fredericton, takes an intravenous injection of Avastin every two weeks to help treat his colorectal cancer. He said the drug, along with chemotherapy, has saved his life.

"I was written off in New Brunswick here last year — I was given two years to live," he said. "I've taken chemotherapy along with Avastin and I've had a tangerine-sized tumour in my gastrointestinal tract reduced to nothing."

Goodridge's private health insurance did not cover the drug, and he spent roughly $6,300 a month on Avastin before the New Brunswick government decided to cover the cost last November.

Goodridge said he wants P.E.I. to join the rest of the provinces and finance the drug. He has been in touch with the  Colorectal Cancer Association of Canada and has written an open letter to the P.E.I. government.

"This is not pie in the sky stuff or experimental drugs," he said. "This is a world standard of care that P.E.I. is not providing to its citizens."

The drug works by stopping the blood supply to cancerous tumours, extending the lives of some patients in the late stages of colorectal cancer.

Avastin was approved by Health Canada in 2005, but it is up to each province to decide which drugs to cover.

Dr. Philip Champion, a medical oncologist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown, said Avastin is one of many expensive drugs he would like to see covered by the province.

"It's not been proven to cure the disease yet, but we have quite a number of patients every year who die from colon cancer and quite a number benefit from chemotherapy and many of those could live a little longer and have slightly better quality of life if we had all the new drugs available," he said.

Faye Martin, who is with P.E.I.'s Department of Health, said the province is considering adding Avastin to the list of funded cancer drugs. She said it would cost roughly $600,000 a year to provide the drug to the 17 Islanders who would need it.

"I don't have a time commitment. We've been working on this," she said. "I know there is a lot of interest and need out in the community.

"Certainly it's compelling to hear about individual stories and we know time is of the essence."