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A young Wollongong mother has spoken about her "remarkable" recovery from a breast cancer that had little hope of a cure.
The 33-year-old says a new medication changed her life but it was so expensive she had to find tens of thousands of dollars for her initial treatment.
When Brigitte Phillips was pregnant with her youngest, Emma, she felt a lump in her breast.
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After an ultrasound she was told it was mastitis.
"It was only after one of the antibiotics made me sick and I ended up in hospital and a chance encounter with another doctor, they happened to feel the lump," Phillips told 9News.
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Doctors diagnosed cancer, which had spread.
An emergency caesarean and chemotherapy quickly followed but a month of treatment didn't work.
Tests revealed the 33-year-old has a genetic mutation which meant she'd benefit from a drug called Lynparza, which costs $7000 a month.
"I'm so grateful I've got the family and friends that I do and they stepped up and said we'll help you."
The results within three months were remarkable.
"The lump in my breast, which was the size of a baseball, it had shrunk away to nothing," she said.
Phillips no longer pays for the drug after being put onto the drug company's compassionate scheme.
But a new preliminary report, commissioned by Astrazeneca, highlights an underlying issue – the gap in timely access to new medicines for all sorts of conditions.
"We know in Australia it can take a lot longer for new and innovative medicines to be publicly subsidised and granted access to patients when compared to other OECD countries like Japan or the United Kingdom or Germany," McKell Institute CEO Edward Cavanough told 9News.
Phillips' treatment is reimbursed for other types of cancer but for cases like her's.
In a statement, Astrazeneca said the current evaluation process for cancer medicines makes it challenging to prove the value of the medicine to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee and that reform to the system is needed.
A government spokesperson said a review is currently taking place and it's committed to listing all medicines that are recommended by the independent expert committee.
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