Petition Reinstate Regorafenib on the Cancer Drugs Fund list

The drug regorafenib (Stivarga®) was approved last year as 3rd line treatment for patients with advanced Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumour (a rare type of cancer found in the digestive system). Regorafenib is used to treat GIST cancer that is unresponsive to existing drugs imatinib and sunitinib. It has proved very successful, stopping disease growth or causing significant shrinkage, and is better tolerated by patients. Younger patients with a rare form of “Wildtype” GIST respond very well to regorafenib.
The withdrawal of this drug from the Fund means patients whose GIST cancer is inoperable or has spread widely and is not contained by alternatives have no other treatment options available and will die sooner than might have been the case with this drug.
We are calling on the decision to be reconsidered and regorafenib to be reinstated on the CDF list. There is currently no cure for inoperable GIST but targeted drugs like regorafenib enable a patient to live for considerably longer.