Deputy Prime Minister Advocates for Access to Brand-Name Cancer Drugs

Cancer survivor, Deputy Prime Minister Santia Bradshaw, is making a case for access to the brand-name drugs for cancer patients.

She told the House of Assembly on Tuesday there were concerns that Androcur had been removed from the list of drugs accessible to cancer patients and replaced with Cyproterone tablets which has “some side effects”.

“While I appreciate that we have to find alternates, I want us to look at whether we are exploring with the same zeal and zest that we do on other things. The fact that we need to make sure we do get some of the brand-name drugs to our people, and to make sure that where there are the side effects we are getting from the generic drugs, that we perhaps have a conversation with our people to explain or to enlighten them as to whether the drugs are comparable, or whether we can do more to make sure that persons are being able to access what others are accessing across the rest of the world,” she said.

The Member of Parliament for St Michael South East .was speaking on the Barbados Medical Products Bill, 2026, under which a regulatory Barbados Medical Products Authority would be created.

Bradshaw noted that there was a time when Barbados had a far better relationship with the pharmaceutical companies in being able to access those brand-name drugs and those drugs now meant that it could be a bit more expensive.

“It also means that more research has gone into those particular drugs in terms of being able to have the accessibility to our people. While I appreciate and understand that sometimes the generic drugs may often be as effective, I am concerned for the cancer patients,” said Bradshaw, who is Minister of Environment, National Beautification and Fisheries.

Technology was allowing Barbadians to know the type of drugs others were accessing worldwide, while they were being told that only a particular drug was available in Barbados, she told the House.

“I experienced it when I was going through my treatment. Therefore, when I speak, I speak from a place not only as a representative of the people, but I speak from experience because when I was trying to find a regimen that was comparable to the medication I was to receive overseas, I was told quite simply, I would have to take what is available on the market, and I was not going to have access to the drugs that were available overseas.

“Now, I may have been fortunate, and I give thanks to the Almighty Father every day for being able to have the opportunity to go there, but I never forget the people I have lost along the way that also had to settle for things that were, I won’t say inferior, but were not the same,” Bradshaw stated.