Cancer Doctors Join Insurers in U.S. Drug-Cost Revolt

[Purveyor]

By Robert Langreth May 7, 2014 12:00 AM ET

The backlash over surging drug prices is starting to take hold.

With the average cost of branded cancer drugs doubling over the past decade to about $10,000 per month in the U.S., doctors, insurers and politicians are all moving in different ways to pressure drugmakers on pricing.

Cancer doctors are in the process of creating a way to measure the value of the drugs they prescribe, the first step in a drive to give patients affordable options. Insurers are increasingly paying only a percentage of the cost of high-priced drugs, forcing drugmakers to step into the breach for consumers who can’t afford their products. Politicians, meanwhile, have begun asking drugmakers to explain the cost of their products.

“This is a moral imperative,” said Clifford Hudis, president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the nation’s largest group of cancer doctors. “I don’t think any of us want to look back and say we turned away and didn’t lead while this was happening.”

Global spending on cancer drugs alone rose 28 percent to $91 billion in 2013 from $71 billion in 2008, according to a report by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, the group that also reported the monthly cost rise.

more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-07/cancer-doctors-join-insurers-in-revolt-against-drug-costs.html

[tammywammy]

1. k&r