Pharmac's board will consider a proposal at its meeting next week to fund bortezomib as a first- and second-line treatment for multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells in the bone marrow, attacking the immune system, the bones, and the sufferer's healthy bone marrow.
Pharmac's board will also consider expanding funding for thalidomide so it can be used as a first-line treatment.
As the rules are at the moment, it is available after other treatments.
Bortezomib, which has not been publicly funded previously, could put the bone marrow cancer on to a "plateau".
While it was not the cure, it had proven to be highly effective at prolonging cancer sufferers' lives.
Dr Neylon said neither Britain nor Australia had approved bortezomib as a first-line treatment.
Getting patients to trust thalidomide sometimes proved difficult because of its notorious links to birth defects when it was prescribed for morning sickness in the 1950s and 1960s.
Clinicians were extremely careful about prescribing thalidomide, especially for women of child-bearing age.
Thalidomide has proven effective at starving myeloma cells of their blood supplies.
Many multiple myeloma sufferers were older, so they tended to be familiar with the thalidomide scandal.
The incidence of multiple myeloma was increasing because of the ageing population.
In New Zealand there are 200 new cases of multiple myeloma each year, Dr Neylon said.
This week, Pharmac medical director Dr Peter Moodie told the University of Otago cancer symposium in Wellington that Pharmac had recommended its board fund the drugs, Radio New Zealand reported.
