Cancer Doctors Raise Pressure On Pharma Industry To Cut Drug Prices
Source: Forbes
4/25/2013 @ 5:27PM |29 views
Cancer Doctors Raise Pressure On Pharma Industry To Cut Drug Prices
In the latest flap over the high cost of cancer medicines, nearly 120 physicians from 15 countries have authored a commentary in a medical journal in which they call for drugmakers to lower their prices. The move reflects ongoing concern that rising price tags — a growing number of such drugs cost $100,000 or more annually — will eventually force some patients to forgo treatment.
“Advocating for lower drug prices is a necessity to save the lives of patients who cannot afford them,” the physicians write in Blood, the journal of the American Society of Hematology. Since many specialize in chronic myeloid leukemia, which is a deadly blood cancer, they cited Gleevec, a best-selling medication marketed by Novartis .
In fact, one of the doctors who signed the commentary is Brian Druker, who was the lead academic developer of the drug and is now director of the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health and Science University. “If you are making $3 billion a year on Gleevec, could you get by with $2 billion?” he tells The New York Times. “When do you cross the line from essential profits to profiteering?”
For its part, Novartis counters that Gleevec is provided at no charge to 5,000 uninsured or underinsured Americans each year and, so far, some 50,000 people in poor nations have received the drug for free. But for those who must absorb the cost, the drugmaker maintains there is good value – Gleevec can turn a deadly disease into a chronic condition.
Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/edsilverman/2013/04/25/cancer-doctors-raise-pressure-on-pharma-industry-to-cut-drug-prices/
= new reply since forum marked as read
