Call for cancer drug subsidy reforms

Melanoma researchers warn the federal government is subsidising expensive and ineffective cancer drugs.

The over-reliance on drug company approaches within Australian hospitals was seriously limiting new and cheaper research approaches, Australian Melanoma Research Foundation director Brendan Coventry said.

He told a Senate hearing in Canberra on Monday, taxpayers were paying three times over with initial costs, treatment of side effects and hospital time as well as the cost of dying which occurred in 90 per cent of advanced cancer cases.