Bowel cancer patients and oncologists are pleading for Prime Minister Julia Gillard's cabinet to approve the listing of the drug Erbitux on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).
On Friday, federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon refused to back down from the government's decision to defer the PBS listing of critical drugs.
The treatment costs patients $2000 a week and is creating a class divide among sufferers the Gut Foundation, the national bowel cancer organisation, says.
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About 2000 people would benefit if the drug was subsidised.
The scheme would cost taxpayers $30 million a year and would mean patients would have to pay no more than $35 per script.
Bowel cancer is the second largest cause of cancer deaths in Australia.
There are an estimated 13,000 new cases diagnosed each year and almost 80 Australians dying from bowel cancer each week, the Gut Foundations says.
Australia 'lagging behind'
Royal North Shore Hospital oncologist Dr Nick Pavlakis told AAP Australia was lagging behind other countries in offering a subsidy for the treatment.
Canada and the UK already subsidise it, and Australia should too because one of the first clinical trials to prove it worked was done here, he said.
"If this was breast cancer, it probably wouldn't have taken as long," he said.
Dr Pavlakis said the drug was able to buy bowel cancer sufferers more time, sometimes up to six months or even a few years.
"It's been proven to work in people, where chemotherapy has stopped working in delaying tumour growth," he said.
"In other people where it's given early, in combination with chemotherapy it makes chemo more effective.
"It shrinks tumours and increases quality of life.
"Some sufferers are young, in their 40s with families, and they want as much time as possible with their kids, it's a big outlay for them."
He said a genetic testing ensured only sufferers who were likely to benefit from the drug were prescribed it.
"It won't work in about 40 per cent of people with colon cancer, so the testing ensures it won't go to waste," he said.
