NADIA Sawalha is leading a desperate effort to raise £150k by Friday to fund a legal appeal that could enable the NHS to roll out a game-changing cancer drug.
Thousands of women in England, Wales and Northern Ireland living with secondary breast cancer faced a hammer blow when Enhertu – which is used to treat patients like them in 25 countries including Scotland – was denied for use on the NHS by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) due to its cost.
It’s estimated to be around £10,000 per patient per year in the US where it is available to cancer patients.
Nadia’s close friend Hannah Gardner, 37, whom she calls her ‘daughter’, is currently on Enhertu as part of a clinical trial that sees her also having to take a more toxic drug as part of its conditions.
So far, the mum-of-one’s tumours have responded well to the life-extending medicine, but the delay in getting onto the trial allowed her stage 4 cancer to spread.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun, Nadia, 59, explained why the group, which has raised £45,000 towards its target at the time of writing, is having to self-fund lawyers to contest NICE’s decision.
Speaking from her home, she says: “Big Pharma told us that NHS England have been offered it [Enhertu] at the lowest price of anyone else that’s taken Enhertu. And so that’s NICE then, who are in charge of approving.
“I was in the [Royal] Marsden many times with Hannah and them saying, ‘oh, well, it will come through. There’s always a bit of this back and forth and it will come through’.
“You know, it’s an amazing drug. Nothing’s had this reaction since Herceptin, which we know has saved hundreds of thousands of women’s lives.
“So everybody thought it was a dead cert, but what happened is there’s something called a severity modifier; if you imagine, secondary breast cancer was in the column of a severe disease and there was a certain pot of money for that, but they moved it across the column to moderately severe. Now there is no cure for secondary breast cancer.
“So for those women to be told that their disease wasn’t severe and was only moderate and that that pot of money that was over there is now no longer available to buy this drug was just devastating.”
In July a group of 25 women took to Westminster and proudly stood outside of Parliament with their bare chests painted to raise awareness of the plight.
Sadly, just days ago one of the brave women, Heather, died from her cancer, which goes to show just how crucial time is in this fight.
Nadia and the Enhertu campaigners have a scheduled meeting with Health Secretary Wes Streeting on October 23 and are hopeful he can have some sway on the battle to equip the NHS with Enhertu.
As the campaign’s most prominent face, Nadia has received countless messages from women sharing their stories.
It’s something she doesn’t take lightly and admits it is giving her great energy to continue the fight to secure the drug.
She says: “I absolutely love it. And the emotions give me enormous energy. That’s what it does. It gives me fire.
“Hannah is my daughter. That’s the way I think of it. That’s the way I’ve always felt about her.
“From the first day I met her, when we were climbing the Himalayas for CoppaFeel!, I felt this unbelievable strength. Her father’s, her father’s Iraqi, her father was Iraqi. Her father died of liver cancer actually last year.
“Her father is Iraqi and her mother is Irish. And so we have a similar mix, you know, and there’s just something just genetic about us that just connected. And so I fight like she’s my daughter.”
Breast cancer is the most common form of the disease in women in Britain, and one in seven will develop it at some stage in their life.
There are more than 56,000 new cases every year and around 12,000 deaths. Around a third of patients are diagnosed with incurable secondary breast cancer.
A drug like Enhertu can extend women’s lives by up to six months, giving them more precious time with their families.
Nadia continues: “Every woman I meet, I’m the same. I’m outraged. I’m just outraged.
“So it doesn’t get me down. It drives me forward really, because actually what it does is it gives me bloody gratitude. It makes me go right here, right now, today, though nobody knows, I don’t have cancer.
“But there isn’t anybody in the world that isn’t going to be touched by breast cancer in some way. And that’s why I think everyone could be involved in this fight.”
Should the group secure the funds needed to secure a legal team, which includes a barrister who fought to overturn the ban on Herceptin – another game-changing cancer drug, Nadia said they would work to make progress as quickly as possible.
“We have a massive clock ticking over our head all the time,” she says. “Like when we think of, you know, Heather, who lost her life this week and we think of the other women that were out there on the lawn with us that next will need it. You know, that sort of driving, we’re in a hurry, we’re impatient.”
To donate to the campaign, click here.
What is Enhertu? Enhertu, also known as trastuzumab deruxtecan, is a targeted cancer therapy used primarily to treat certain types of breast cancer. It is an antibody-drug conjugate, which means it combines an antibody with a chemotherapy drug.
How Does Enhertu Work? Enhertu works by specifically targeting the HER2 receptor, a protein overexpressed in some cancer cells. The antibody portion of Enhertu binds to the HER2 receptor, delivering the attached chemotherapy drug directly to the cancer cells. This targeted approach aims to kill cancer cells while minimising damage to healthy cells.
Indications: Enhertu is primarily indicated for:
Administration: Enhertu is administered via intravenous infusion, typically in a clinical setting. The dosage and treatment schedule depend on various factors, including the type and stage of cancer, as well as the patient’s overall health.
Side Effects: Common side effects of Enhertu may include:
Effectiveness: Clinical trials have shown Enhertu to be effective in shrinking tumours and slowing the progression of cancer in patients with HER2-positive cancers, particularly when other treatments have failed.
