Women with ovarian cancer wish they could form a sea of teal to lobby for more research funding but they die too quickly.
New data collated by Ovarian Cancer Australia shows research into breast cancer received four times as much money as their cause over the past four years, and prostate cancer got twice as much.
Ovarian cancer sufferer Jill Emberson told politicians in Canberra, including Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten, there was much stacked against those with the disease.
"It's very hard for us to form a big army of teal advocates as our breast cancer sisters have been able to do so well in pink," Ms Emberson told the crowd on Wednesday.
"But I just need you to know that all of the women like me, we actually feel that we are on our knees in trying to advance this cancer and fundamentally that means we need significant sums of money."
The Newcastle journalist was diagnosed in early 2016. She now has stage four - incurable and terminal - cancer.
"Even though I'm 60 now, I still have a whole lot of potential to live and I'm not going to get to fulfil that potential," she said, choked with emotion.
Kristen Larsen, 26, also shared her story of finding out she had cancer five years ago while living in London and learning recently it had spread again to become terminal.
The pair spoke after the prime minister announced the government would spend $1.6 million on a pilot project to help women with ovarian cancer get care and support via telehealth.
In January, the government said it would spend an extra $27 million on more breast care nurses.
Ms Emberson said ovarian cancer needed big sums of money like that, not just little bits, and it needed it in research.
"I don't feel that I've got the right to better care than other cancer sufferers but when women like me and Kristen ... face such a persistently diabolical prognosis, it's hard not to feel kind of forgotten," she said.
She knew of researchers who had been forced to abandon projects on ovarian cancer and switch fields because all the money was being directed to researching breast cancer.
Referring to the high rate of successful treatment for breast cancer, she said: "We need to be 90 per cent women. Not 46 per cent women."
