Patients with multiple myeloma, a type of leukemia, whose drug 'Drazlax' they need did not enter the drug basket this year, sent an unprecedented appeal to committee members claiming it was a decision "that there were significant defects".
According to them, there are huge price differences between the amount in which the medicine was submitted to the basket, NIS 47-34 million, and the cost presented to the committee - NIS 220 million, a huge amount that constitutes about 40 percent of the medicine basket budget and was one of the reasons for not including treatment.
The patients claim that the cost presented to the committee is "unfounded" and that the committee's chairman, Prof. Yonatan Halevi, admitted to them that the budget cost is NIS 34 million. The committee, and for the first time in importance by the doctors of the Hematology Association, introduced another drug, in the amount of NIS 47 million.
Dreslax prolongs the life expectancy of its patients by about a year and a half.
The price of treatment for a single patient is about NIS 185,000.
Only patients with private health insurance are eligible to receive first-line treatment.
"After incorrect data was presented to the committee regarding the budget cost, the committee members must re-examine its decisions," said Varda Shoham, director general of the Multiple Myeloma Patients Association (AMN).
"Significant budget"
Prof. Halevy said: "There is no basis for the allegations made in the association's letter. This is a preparation for a lawsuit. Even what is quoted by me is inaccurate. I did tell them in the conversation that the data was not in my face, but after checking the facts it was incorrect."
The Ministry of Health stated: "The basket committee and its members delved deeper into the treatment of multiple myeloma. The Ministry of Health disagrees with the economic assessments and their significance as they appear in the letter from the AMN association.
The basket committee saw before its eyes the needs of myeloma patients, and as evidence it devoted a significant budget to treating these patients in favor of adding treatment lines that were not available to them.
"These days, many myeloma patients can receive a therapeutic response through the treatments that have been added to the basket this year."
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