Bayer partners Bright Future Fund to improve access to innovative treatment for liver and kidney cancer patients in Vietnam
Bayer partners Bright Future Fund to improve access to innovative treatment for liver and kidney cancer patients in Vietnam
Bayer South East Asia Pte Ltd. (Bayer SEA) and Bright Future Fund (BFF) in Vietnam, a member of Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) have established a patient assistance programme to provide Vietnamese patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) or advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) with better access to a targeted oral cancer therapy.
In the programme, patients who are diagnosed with HCC or RCC, and are prescribed with the oral cancer drug approved by the Ministry of Health (MoH) will be funded for the drug treatment at every second treatment cycle. The programme will be implemented in two stages with first applied at K Hospital, Bach Mai Hospital, Medical University Centre and Cho Ray Hospital and then expanded to more hospitals and medical centres nationwide.
Each year, there are 782,000 new cases of liver cancer and 746,000 related deaths worldwide. HCC represents more than 90 per cent of the liver cancer cases. Recently, Vietnam has been ranked 5th globally among countries with the highest incidence of liver cancer for both sexes. In Vietnam, the incidence of liver cancer is higher in men than in women and is ranked 3rd after Mongolia and Laos.
“It is estimated that there are almost 22,000 new cases of liver cancer every year in Vietnam. This brings upon enormous challenges and burdens to the national health care system as well as to patients themselves,” said Dr. Tran Van Thuan, director of BFF. “Hence, BFF and Bayer SEA have worked together to bring this programme to help local patients in their battles against cancers.”
“The programme offers a practical support for patients in reducing the treatment cost, indirectly helping them to adhere to the recommended doses of cancer drug in their treatment to optimise efficacy,” said Dr. Nguyen Dinh Song Huy, deputy head of Oncology Centre, head of Liver Cancer Department at Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City.
According to Dr. Huy, the hospital sees almost 3,000-3,500 new cases of liver cancers each year. “Unfortunately there are more and more patients who only get to know about their disease at advanced stages when only targeted treatment with an oral multi-kinase inhibitor is recommended if their liver function is still good. The drug has been proven to prolong survival in patients with good treatment tolerability.”
“As the leader for HCC systemic treatment, Bayer is honoured to collaborate with BFF and hospitals in this patient assistance programme to support patients in Vietnam who are suffering from HCC or advanced RCC. Through this initiative, we aim to provide local patients with better access to the innovative cancer treatment,” said Dr. Lynette Moey, chief representative of Bayer SEA Office in Ho Chi Minh City.
