A group of patients has called for expanding reimbursement standards for Tagrisso (osimertinib), AstraZeneca’s treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), to help ease their financial burden.

Tagrisso is registered as the secondary treatment for NSCLC, but the group urged the government to upgrade its status to primary treatment.

The Korea Alliance of Patient Organizations demanded in a statement Tuesday.

The Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) will hold a meeting of the Cancer Disease Deliberation Committee Wednesday to discuss the appropriateness of reimbursement for anticancer treatments, including Tagrisso.

Tagrisso is a third-generation targeted agent which has proved its efficacy in “EGFR T790M” mutation-positive locally progressive and metastatic NSCLC patients who have developed tolerance to the second-generation EGFR-TKI drugs, such as Iressa, Tarceva, and Giotrif. It has received insurance benefits since Dec. 5, 2017, as a secondary treatment.

However, several recent studies have shown that Tagrisso’s treatment outcome is better when used as a primary treatment instead of secondary and later-stage treatment. Accordingly, some stage 4 patients take Tagrisso, paying about 70 million won ($53,450) annually to survive.

The patient group pointed out that although the plan to expand insurance reimbursement for Tagrisso as the primary treatment has been tabled at the committee meeting since October 2019, it failed to cross the threshold for three years and five months. It also expressed concerns about the nightmarish situation where patients had to die while waiting for the insurance coverage of another NSCLC treatment, Keytruda.

“Keytruda was also registered as secondary or later-stage treatment in 2017. However, patients used it as the primary treatment by paying an enormous sum until it was converted into primary treatment four years and six months later. In the meantime, many patients died unable to shoulder expensive drug costs.”

Although some new drugs directly related to life, including Kymriah and Zolgensma, are registered with health insurance faster than before, the overall expansion of insurance benefits still progresses at a snail’s pace, it said.

“As saving and prolonging lives are important, Tagrisso should receive reimbursement as primary treatment as quickly as possible,” the group added.

Emphasizing that Keytruda’s nightmare must not repeat, it said, “Considering that Tagrisso now is applied with expanded standard as primary treatment in about 60 countries, Korea should also table the matter at Wednesday’s meeting and pass it.”

It also called for the government to establish the “human rights principle that guarantees patients’ access to new drugs directly related to life,” by which the government and biopharmaceutical companies first save patients with new drugs and decide the drug’s prices later.