Each year around 1,500 Australian are being diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia, it is a slow form of cancer but it is deadly.
Ten years is the life span that a person who contracted leukaemia, a form of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia or the cancer that form by cancerous white blood cells in bone marrow can expect to live. And half of that time is vanished when Warren Lippiat was told that he was diagnosed with Leukaemia, he was very devastated, as he may only have another five more years to live his life and may never have the chance to see his child's first day at school.
However, his life have been turning around when he decided to participate with a clinical trial with the new drug called Imbruvica. He is now Leukaemia free and looking forward to spend the rest of his life with his family once more.
"I am looking forward to see them grow up and being around on their 21st birthday, being around on the day that they get married, which were simply, impossible prior to this period of time, it just wasn't an option for me."
Australian government has made this type of cancer treatable by adding this new cancer drug Imbruvica (Ibrutinib) in its Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). By doing this it will reduce the treatment cost from hundred thousand to just less than five hundred dollars, which Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that-
"It's life changing, life saving and not just for patients like Warren but their families, for children that will have their fathers and mothers with them for years and years."
Head of the Hematology Department at Royal North Shore Hospital, Professor Stephen Mulligan elaborated that -
"this drug targets the protein that feed the cancer cells and holds off the survival and stops the growth signals so finally the cancer cells die off therefore it keeps Leukaemia at bay."
Leukaemia Foundation chief executive Bill Petch said that it took years to achieve this accomplishment. He said that it took around 4 years to develop this drugs and took many more years for clinical trial before they can actually develop this medicine. Therefore he said that his agency will do whatever it takes to fast forward this drugs to patients with Leukaemia so they can be treated.
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