The white knight moment has come for a Texas lawyer who has spent the past two months amassing an “army” of virtual supporters in her quest for access to an experimental cancer drug. Only the turnout isn’t exactly as she had imagined.
Andrea Sloan, who has gathered nearly 210,000 signatures on a petition to BioMarin Pharmaceutical, posted a video on her Facebook page on Thursday expressing gratitude toward her supporters and an unnamed company who she said stepped in to provide her with access to an experimental cancer drug under “compassionate use.”
Sloan had originally reached out to BioMarin requesting access to BMN673, the company’s not-yet-U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved cancer drug that it said shrunk the tumors of 11 out of 25 ovarian cancer patients by at least 30 percent in a recent phase 1/2 trial. Her doctors had recommended the drug when her ovarian cancer reappeared after several rounds of chemotherapy, two rounds of radiation and five surgeries.
The FDA allows drug companies to give experimental drugs to patients outside of clinical trials if the patient meets certain requirements, which Sloan said she did. But BioMarin had turned down her request, saying in a letter that it was “too early to know if the experimental therapy is safe or effective, or will even prolong life.” That was when the social media war began.
In her video, Sloan said a competing pharmaceutical company developing a drug of the same class, a PARP inhibitor, came to the rescue. She said she was now taking a medication that she was sure would help extend her life. The company providing it likely asked for anonymity to avoid being put under a microscope the same way BioMarin was as a result of the campaign.
In a separate video posted on her Facebook page, Sloan tells BioMarin that the fight isn’t over. “I did want to let you know that we’re not dead,” she says. “This has always been about compassionate use reform for everyone.”
Day 3 of my new meds…can feel those cancer cells dying. #Grateful Want this for all. #CompassionateUseReform #BioMarinNeedsPolicy
— Andrea Sloan (@andi_sloan) Oct. 6, 2013
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
