Prestigious award for blood cancer expert

Medicines New Zealand presented a national award to Waipapa Taumata Rau Professor Peter Browett at the Grand Hall of Parliament on 14 August.

The award recognises Browett’s significant contributions to medicine over more than 35 years. 

“It came a bit out of the blue - I’m deeply honoured to receive it,” he says.

Browett’s list of job titles is long and impressive – he’s a professor of molecular medicine and pathology, co-director of the University’s Centre for Cancer Research, a haematologist and lead for clinical research in the haematology department at Auckland Hospital, co-director of the Leukaemia and Blood Cancer Research Unit, trustee of the Australasian Leukaemia and Lymphoma Group, medical director for Leukaemia and Blood Cancer NZ, and clinical director of Auckland Regional Biobank and of Grafton Clinical Genomics.

Browett is like a humble hurricane, sweeping through for a quick interview, before rushing off to his next appointment.

When pressed, he says his biggest achievement so far has been testing a lifesaving new drug for people with chronic myeloid leukaemia.

Before the groundbreaking new drug, Imatinib, was developed, patients had a life expectancy of four to five years.

In 2000, Browett was involved in the first clinical trials for Imatinib, which now allows patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia to have a normal life expectancy.

“The results were so spectacularly different between the patients receiving the standard chemotherapy treatment and the patients receiving the new drug that after 12 months, they decided it would be unethical to continue the patients on the standard treatment, so everybody was changed to Imatinib,” Browett says.

The first New Zealand patient to go on the drug in those clinical trials is still alive 25 years later and has been able to stop taking the medicine.

Imatinib targets specific genes that cause leukaemia and has far fewer side effects than the former chemotherapy treatment, which was toxic to healthy cells as well as cancer cells.
 

Working with the Australasian Leukaemia and Lymphoma Group, Browett was involved in some of the first major studies on another groundbreaking new strategy to treat blood cancers.

Through this work, he helped bring a lifesaving treatment - arsenic trioxide and retinoic acid - to patients with acute promyelocytic leukaemia.

“That used to be very hard to treat and had high early morbidity and mortality.

“Now, some of those patients can be treated without chemotherapy – arsenic trioxide and retinoic acid cures 90 percent of patients.”

Last year, the Australasian Leukaemia and Lymphoma Group awarded him life membership, to acknowledge his substantial contributions.

He has been instrumental in bringing more clinical trials for new medicines to Auckland Hospital, which had few trials before he began working as a haematologist there in the 1990s.

In 2016, he helped establish an early phase clinical trials unit, a joint initiative between Auckland Hospital and the University of Auckland

“There's good data that when clinical teams are involved in research, there are better outcomes for patients, not just those who are on the trials, but all patients.

“That reflects the knowledge people have and improved quality of care.”

In collaboration with the UK National Cancer Research Institute and the Australasian Leukaemia and Lymphoma Group, he has been involved in drug trials at centres treating blood cancers around New Zealand.

He says ideally clinical trials would be available for all cancer patients.

“Clinical trials improve outcomes for patients – that’s the only way you’re going to advance knowledge.”

His typical workload involves leading two or three clinical trials and being involved in about five others, testing drugs for patients with blood cancers and other blood disorders.

One recent trial investigated Kinase Inhibition With Sprycel Start up (KISS) treatment for patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia.

Sprycel is essentially a more potent form of Imatinib, with an increased risk of side effects. Browett led a team that tested Sprycel as an initial treatment to induce remission, before switching to Imatinib for long term treatment

“Preliminary analysis of the results suggests this treatment strategy is effective and safe.”

He has also campaigned to have drugs funded by Pharmac, so cancer patients can afford medicines that might save their lives or significantly improve their quality of life.

One big win was getting midostaurin funded last year.

“That has improved survival of patients in New Zealand with acute myeloid leukaemia by about 7 percent.”

He has no regrets about choosing to specialise in haemotology – even though it wasn’t an obvious choice for someone who can’t handle gore.

“I faint at the sight of blood, unless it’s in a tube or slide,” he laughs.

“But would I train in haemotology again? Absolutely.

“It’s a field with lots of questions to answer and lots of areas of unmet need.”