An Auckland woman undergoing treatment for early-stage triple negative breast cancer has spent months advocating for that treatment to be funded for others, taking a petition all the way to Parliament amid her gruelling health battle.
Since then, Catherine Cooke has been told her cancer has spread. Facing additional costs to have more treatment, she says “the hits just keep coming”.
In September, Cooke was told it could take up to a year for the parliamentary petitions select committee to respond. Today, the business advisor and mother of two presented an in-person submission on her petition to that select committee.
In New Zealand, the immunotherapy drug Keytruda is funded for advanced triple negative breast cancer, but not early-stage.
Cooke was diagnosed in November 2024 aged 53. She has paid for 8 cycles of Keytruda, which have been administered alongside chemotherapy, to treat her cancer. However, her cancer has now spread.
She’s eligible to have up to 27 further cycles of the treatment funded through a cost-share scheme offered by drug supplier Merck Sharpe & Dome (MSD).
But the catch is she can only have it administered in a private healthcare facility, at a cost of $2634 per cycle, including fees and GST. In New Zealand, unfunded medications cannot be given in a public setting.
“There’s always going to be a cost in life, but the reality is that this cost came about because I had to fund Keytruda,” Cooke tells the Herald.
“Why is it that unfunded treatment can’t be given in a public setting? Why is it that if I’m prepared to fund it or I reach a co-share partnership, why can’t I be given it in a public setting?
“I’m fighting, I’m committed to staying alive. But the reality is it’s stressing me out and killing me at the same time.”
Earlier this year, Cooke put her family home on the market, hoping the sale could help fund her treatment, while a friend set up a Givealittle page.
But at a time when “nobody is buying” houses, she and her husband have had to sell a business at a loss instead. In the meantime, her health insurance has run out until next year.
Cooke is not alone in facing the high costs of treating an aggressive cancer.
“The amount of women reaching out to me that are getting diagnosed... some of them haven’t even been offered Keytruda in a private setting because they’ve already said they’ve got no money,” she says.
“I have women writing to me saying, ‘I’m writing goodbye letters’.”
Cooke will continue paying to receive Keytruda, as well as radiation therapy followed by oral chemotherapy.
“I’ll finish the chemo and then I’ll go into a surveillance programme to be checked every three months.”
Early-stage triple negative breast cancer is survivable, but has a high rate of relapse. While she’s living in that “painful” reality, Cooke says she also feels lucky.
“We were very fortunate to be gifted a holiday... which enabled me to see some family in Australia.
“My husband and I had a beautiful holiday. We were able to forget about things.”
She says she is speaking out not just for herself. It’s also for women like 26-year-old Beverley Di Mercurio, who was diagnosed with stage 3 triple negative breast cancer in March this year.
“It was a total shock, not the kind of news you would expect at 26,” Di Mercurio tells the Herald.
Before her diagnosis, she was healthy and active, with no family history of cancer.
“At this point, I didn’t know much about breast cancer at all and almost didn’t get it checked. My world flipped upside down in a day and I was terrified.
“It’s tough facing your mortality in your twenties.”
She had six months of funded chemotherapy, along with Keytruda, which cost her nearly $63,000 in total - 8 doses at $7800 each. At the time of writing, a Givealittle page has raised around $28,000 to go towards her treatment costs.
Now Di Mercurio is officially cancer-free and says her situation shows just how effective the treatment can be for triple negative breast cancer.
“I shouldn’t have had to spend my house deposit to earn this second chance at life,” she says.
“For many women this is not even an option. Immunotherapy is not a holistic or optional treatment, but the only way to allow chemotherapy to target TNBC cells effectively. It’s a lifeline.”
Keytruda has been added to Pharmac’s options for investment list for high-risk early stage triple negative breast cancer.
However, there are also 122 other medicines on that list waiting for funding.
“Keytruda has been funded for certain patients with advanced triple negative breast cancer since October 2024, and we are now working with Pharmac, trying to extend funded access for certain people diagnosed at an earlier stage of this challenging disease,” MSD director Vanessa Gascoigne said in a statement.
Breast Cancer Foundation NZ CEO Ah-Leen Rayner says New Zealanders with high-risk early-stage triple negative breast cancer need funded access to more treatment options.
“We hope Pharmac can widen access to Keytruda so that eligible Kiwis with this aggressive type of breast cancer can have funded access to another treatment option.”
About 3500 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in New Zealand every year - 10-20% of them with triple negative.
Those diagnosed at an early stage like Cooke “shouldn’t be hit with administration fees and GST on top of the cost of unfunded treatment”, Rayner says.
“These unnecessary charges unfairly burden people already under immense stress, and deepen the divide between those who can afford treatment and those who can’t.
“The Government should be doing everything it can to remove barriers to essential medicines, not adding to them.”
Bethany Reitsma is a lifestyle writer who has been with the NZ Herald since 2019. She specialises in all things health and wellbeing and is passionate about telling Kiwis’ real-life stories.