National is promising to put $280 million towards cancer treatments, by restricting fee-free prescriptions to superannuitants and those on low incomes.

The money would be ringfenced for 13 different cancer treatments under Pharmac, and be paid out in $70m installments over four years.

Party leader Christopher Luxon and Health spokesperson Shane Reti announced the policy at Southern Cross Hospital in Auckland on Monday afternoon.

"Despite the hard work and dedication of New Zealand's trusted healthcare professionals, cancer survival rates here lag behind Australia, partially due to Australia's broader funding of cancer medicines," Luxon says.

"The cancer treatments will be available to all patients with clinical need, as assessed by their doctors."

He says the allocation is a better use of taxpayers' money than Labour's universal approach to removing $5 prescription fees for everyone.

"Under National, superannuitants and those on low incomes will receive free prescriptions. For everyone else, the total amount any family will pay for prescriptions in a year will be capped at $100."

The treatments had been identified by New Zealand's Cancer Control Agency as providing significant clinical benefits, and they were funded in Australia but not New Zealand, he said.

They include:

• Osimertinib for lung cancer, first- and second-line therapies
• Atezolizumab with bevacizumab for liver cancer
• Cetuximab or panitumumab for bowel cancer, first- and second-line therapies
• Nivolumab with ipilimumab for kidney cancer, first- and second-line therapies; for head and neck cancer
• Axitinib for kidney cancer - second-line therapy
• Pembrolizumab for bladder cancer
• Nivolumab or pembrolizumab for melanoma (adjuvant)
• Dabrafenib with trametinib for melanoma (adjuvant)
• BRAF/MEK inhibitors for melanoma (unresectable)

-RNZ.