Tobeka Daki died this week. And she shouldn’t have.
Tobeka lived in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, and was the mother of two sons. Her youngest son, Khanya, is 11 years old. In 2013, she was diagnosed with a strain of breast cancer known as HER2.
There is a medicine called Trastuzumab, marketed under the name Herceptin, that is very effective at treating Tobeka’s form of breast cancer. The groundbreaking research that led to the discovery of Herceptin was funded by U.S. taxpayers. A year’s dose can be manufactured for about $176.
But Tobeka was never treated with Herceptin. The corporation that controls the medicine charges about $34,000 in South Africa for a year’s worth of doses. That cost is five times more than Tobeka’s income, which is right around the per capita average in her country. But the corporation enjoys a monopoly patent on the drug, which means they can charge whatever they wish, with no fear of a generic alternative being made available.
That company made $11.6 billion profit in 2015.
Tobeka was enrolled in her country’s medical insurance program. But many physicians in South Africa and other locations don’t even tell their patients with HER2 breast cancer about the existence of Herceptin. No point getting their hopes up about a medicine they and their nation’s health program can never afford.
In her last months of life, Tobeka devoted many precious, dwindling hours to telling her story. Ten million people die each year due to not…