Pfizer has left Australian women with metastatic breast cancer facing $64,000 cost after walking away from PBS pricing negotiations for Tucatinib

Her only option left. Melbourne mum a pharmaceutical trade war hostage as Pfizer walks away on life-extending breast cancer drug.

With Trump's looming US tariffs causing seismic shifts in the pharmaceutical market, US drug giant Pfizer has left Australian women with metastatic breast cancer facing $64,000 cost after walking away from Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) pricing negotiations for Tucatinib.

Key Facts

• Tucatinib (Tukysa) is a breakthrough drug that penetrates brain's natural filter to 
  shrink tumors, offering patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer significant 
  survival boost and better quality of life.
• Recommended for PBS listing in Nov 2025, patients continue to pay between $7000-$9000 per treatment cycle capped a total cost of $64,000.
• Vicki Durston available for interview.

Breast Cancer Network Australia (BCNA) warns that women with metastatic breast cancer are being "abandoned" as victims of a global pharmaceutical standoff that has left them to "deteriorate from an incurable disease.".

Despite a positive recommendation for the brain-penetrating drug tucatinib in November 2025 by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC), negotiations between Pfizer and the Department of Health have ground to a halt. BCNA believes the failure is a result of US pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer "digging in their heels" against the Australian Government’s pricing model in response to the escalating US - Australia trade tensions.

Clinical trial results indicate tucatinib improved response in the brain, prolonged overall survival by an average nine months for patients with brain metastases and delayed the development of new brain lesions. For women with metastatic breast cancer involving the brain like Georgie Cooper, 46, it means more time with her three teenagers.

“I’ve been doing this for eight years. I’ve done everything that can be done. I’ve got cancer growing in my brain and tucatinib is the only option I have left, there are no other drugs available to me. None. This drug is it, but we can’t afford $64,000.

“I want more time with my kids. I want to keep living my day to day. I want to keep driving. And right now, an immediate PBS listing is the only way that becomes possible.”

Australians are now waiting an average of 726 days - almost two years - between Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approval and PBS listing, according to the Australian Patient Access Gap Tracker. That is 135 days longer than previously reported. Additionally, tucatinib has been recommended by NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) in the UK since 2022, with access available through the NHS under its commercial arrangement.

“Australian women are still waiting to affordable access to tucatinib while women in comparable health systems have had access for years and that should outrage the Australian public," said BCNA Director Policy, Advocacy and Support Services, Vicki Durston.

“These are women being left to lose function, lose independence, lose quality of life and lose precious time with the people they love because those with the power to act have failed to do so.

BCNA is calling for the immediate establishment of a fully funded, open compassionate access program for all clinically eligible Australian women, while urgently calling on Pfizer and the Australian Government to return to the negotiating table, resolve the outstanding pricing issues, and deliver a clear, timebound pathway to PBS listing.

“This is not a policy inconvenience. This is what failure looks like when women are left to deteriorate from an incurable disease while Government and a billion-dollar pharmaceutical company say there is no way forward. BCNA will not accept women being abandoned in this way. What is needed now is leadership, urgency and an immediate pathway that stops more women being left to suffer.”

To discuss treatment access, financial toxicity, or navigating the cost of unsubsidised medicines, please contact the BCNA Helpline on 1800 500 258. Support and information are also available through BCNA’s dedicated metastatic breast cancer resources.

For media enquiries, including interviews, contact:

Steve Milton
Breast Cancer Network Australia
0423584423
smilton@bcna.org.au