Doctors blast ethics of $100,000 cancer drugs

[antigop]

Source: money.cnn.com

A group of more than 120 cancer researchers and physicians took the unusual step this week of publishing a research paper taking aim at pharmaceutical prices they see as exorbitant and unjustifiable.

Drug companies are profiteering, the doctors say, by charging whatever the market will bear for medications that patients literally can't live without.

The paper, published online in the American Society of Hematology's medical journal Blood, analyzes and criticizes the cost of drugs used to treat chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), a rare type of cancer that responds very well to drug therapy. The 10-year survival rate for CML patients now tops 80% for those who receive targeted drugs -- but the annual price tag for the treatment is usually in the six-figure range.

Those prices bear little relation to what the drugs actually cost to develop and produce, the doctors say. As an example, they zero in on the case of imatinib, a drug sold by Novartis (NVS) as Gleevec (in the U.S.) or Glivec (in most international markets).

Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/25/news/economy/cancer-drug-cost/index.html

[montanacowboy]

1. So only the filthy rich can be cured

and the rest of the 99% can fucking die

Oh, ain't America great

[Wednesdays]

2. Eugenics: alive and well in the 21st century

[BlancheSplanchnik]

6. really.

disgusting.

[djean111]

3. Money trumps ethics, every time.

Profits trump humanity.
"Trump" seems like a ridiculously apt noun here - and what we have is unregulated Capitalism - no room for ethics at all.

[colorado_ufo]

4. The story says it plainly.

Because of the drug's success rate, they feel justified in charging whatever they want. It's like the old movie line when the robber says, "Your money or your life!" Really - $4.7 BILLILON profit off ONE DRUG? The mind can hardly grasp such greed.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

5. kick! n/t

[Mosby]

7. there are laws that protect consumers from price gouging

Why don't states start applying them to drug prices?

[Sunlei]

8. This is why insurance is so high, the insurance company can say..well the drugs are expensive.

Insurance company probably get a drug cost discount so they can both enjoy massive profits.

This is why America needs non-profit insurance such as medicare for all. And price competition for drug seller companies.

[The Second Stone]

9. steal it and use a necessity defense

just break the patent.

[sigmasix]

10. right wing donut hole deaths

The right wing michigan congress critter's donut hole legislation is responsible for the death of so many cancer fighting Americans that the republican party can't keep up with all of the celebrations for thier deaths. I took Gleevec for 8 years, but republican lawmakers made sure that My family's co-pay for my medicare part D coverage of Gleevec was 7000.00 a month. The republican donut hole legislation also makes it illegal for the manufacturer of gleevec to gift the pills to a medicare member- right wing republicans made it illegal for anti cancer drugs listed in the formulary to be donated to poverty-sticken cancer victims enrolled in medicare. The manufacturer of Gleevec was forced to start an independent charity so that Novartis can help cancer victims. The last time I filled a gleevec prescription for a month the retail price was $14,000.00- The charity run by Novartis (PSI) found a way around republican laws to help with my 7,000.00 medicare co-pay.
Two years ago the Gleevec stopped working and we searched for a replacement drug that works on the same genetic principles. We recently found one called Stivarga, made by bayer. The monthly prescription is $17,000.00, with a medicare co-pay of $10,000.00, due to republican legislation. Bayer has a charity called REACH that has lawyers help them get around the death dealing republican laws against helping poverty stricken cancer patients. They found a way to be able to help the cancer victims that would die without thier medication.

Big pharma sure can be heartless sometimes, but my experience indicates that the majority of people without access to these drugs can thank GW Bush and the republicans that forced drug manufacturers to withhold chemotherapy for poor cancer victims.
Why do Teabaggers and other antiAmerican right wingers hate Americans with disabilities and cancer?

[SheilaT]

22. At the risk of prying rudely into your personal finances

how in the world did you afford $7,000 a MONTH for a drug???

I have never had an income of even half that.

On the other hand, I love to brag that I have the Republican Health Care Coverage. I never get sick. Lucky me. And I do hope my tone of irony is clear there, because I really am amazingly healthy, but I recognize that not everyone is.

[sigmasix]

36. I'm disabled with a small fixed income

My wife is a nurse and I'm disabled. We have never been able to afford the co-pays for my chemotherapy, but we have found charities that have been willing and eager to help us get my chemotherapy. If not for those charities I would have been dead in 2004. The prices for these type of chemotherapy are ridiculous, but the co-payments and laws against charitable cancer drug programs are the responsiblity of the new Republican/Fox "news" party. I cant help but wonder why Teabaggers hate the disabled and the sick so much. Probably has something to do with the basic inhumanity of the extreme right wing.

[SheilaT]

37. On one hand it's genuinely good that

you have been able to find charities that will help you. On the other, no one in this country should have to go begging for the money to pay for needed drugs or any medical care.

It is so obvious that none of those you refer to have ever really known anyone in a situation remotely like yours. Heck, I don't really know anyone in your situation, but I do understand that we should all be helping each other out.

It seems to me that the underlying problem is that for years now the right wing has been harping on and on about how things like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and so on -- all of the safety net things -- are somehow depriving everyone else of being rich. In reality, it's our totally out of control military spending that is the biggest problem.

I am genuinely grateful for my good health. I don't thing anyone out there should be deprived of medical care just because I'm healthy.

[marions ghost]

39. "the donut hole deaths"

to you sigmasix

My dad died of CML leukemia in 2011. I won't go into the details of our struggles with getting Gleevec tablets. It was so stressful for three years. My Dad was under-treated because they tried to give him a lower dose because of the cost (not recommended). He got some of it subsidized under part D. Like you it worked for awhile and then started to be less effective, but because he had not been treated optimally to begin with, he lost any chance for the better drug, which in his case --he was a good candidate for Sprycel. But he died --the Sprycel is more expensive than Gleevec and how we would have paid for it I don't know. My Dad was hopeful right up to the last.

The fact that they can call this a "prescription medication" and NOT chemo--is the problem. Yes, blame the Rethuglicons.

I am sending all best for you. Hang in, and thank you for telling your story. Until we hit this with my Dad we did not know that a daily cancer therapy, a really amazing target drug that many people do well on--was "not chemo."

This is Wrong.

[BethanyQuartz]

11. Got an easy solution

Publicly fund necessary medical and scientific research, then don't privatize it after it's profitable. Instead make some money back selling it at reasonable prices on a sliding scale basis.

[BrotherIvan]

14. +1000000000000000000000000000000000000

[BethanyQuartz]

16. Holy smokes, is that my bill for the XRay?

[Marrah_G]

19. That would be what a country not owned by corporation would do

[airplaneman]

23. We already publicly fund about 50% of the medical research.

Which is then bought by the pharmaceutical companies who then charge massive profits.
Have 100% publicly funded government research and publicly owned drugs that are sold at a reasonable price by publicly run factories paying living wages to its workers. BIG government doing more good that capitalism (american style) could ever do.
-Airplane

[BrotherIvan]

30. Socialist!

[airplaneman]

34. If

Socialism means people are more important than money and
Capitalism means money is more important than people
Then you betcha I'm a Socialist.
-Airplane

[BethanyQuartz]

32. Indeed this is what I meant.

To fund it and then return the profit back to the public or back into more public research. No more private profiteering off important and necessary research.

[yodermon]

12. There should be a Law!

oh wait.

[mountain grammy]

13. Somebody ought to blast something!!

[Hubert Flottz]

15. They jail ruthless bastards who sell ice for $10.00 a bag after a hurricane but

the drug companies get away with vastly overcharging the most traumatized citizens in the world. If you don't believe me, then you haven't looked into the faces and the hearts of friends or loved ones, who has been told that they have cancer. The ones that can't afford these life saving drugs may be the very people who once fought for America's freedom.

[sorefeet]

17. Doctors are the front line

of our defense and they have not been doing their jobs. When will the one million other doctors speak up about the corruption and ethics. Where are your morals doc. Most just roll with the flow and don't say shit. It's a profit thing for them too.

[RobinA]

27. Very Few

doctors are activist material. It's a different "skill set," as they say in business.

[LuckyLib]

31. This was my reaction as well. It's about GD time. Doctors should have been

raising hell years ago. It is, bottom line, about life and death -- if they can't take a stand on that, then don't claim to be a "healer".

[L0oniX]

18. Class warfare ...only the rich survive.

[Fla Dem]

20. Novartis evidently bases it pricing on how well a drug succeeds.

"Gleevec is Novartis' bestselling drug, generating revenue of $4.7 billion last year. The company says the drug's current price tag is justified by its success.

"Thousands of people are alive today because of the development and introduction of targeted CML therapies," company spokeswoman Julie Masow said in a written statement. "

So if a drug works, as it was developed and meant to work, then people should have to pay more for the drug. Conversely then I guess, if drug doesn't work as advertised, i.e.; patients do not get well or die, the drug should cost nothing.

Drug companies are just like all other big corporations, only the bottom line matters. If insurance companies refused to be extorted, then maybe the drug companies would lower their price.

[RobinA]

26. That's Kind of

the way it already works. Generics are cheaper and often don't work well. The branded stuff works better, but you often can't afford it. I never understand this. Pharmas complain about the price of generics, but they don't lower the price on the branded. I, for one, would pay more for a drug that actually works, but branded is just out of reach.

[MAD Dave]

28. The FDA legislates generics to be......

.....85 - 125% as effective as the name brand drug. For the vast majority of people and drugs this level of effectiveness is enough to be therapeutic. There will be some people and some drugs the generic will not work. In that case, physicians can require only name brand drugs be dispensed.

[RobinA]

35. At Some Point

there WILL be scandal concerning the true efficacy of generic drugs. Wait for it.

[marions ghost]

40. You can get Gleevec

from Canada apparently. Cheaper by as much as a third.

Isn't it sad that Americans should have to go to Canada for lifesaving drugs....

[andym]

21. Inflated salaries of health care professionals and inflated cost of therapeutics are key factors

in the high and ever increasing expense of health care.

[KansDem]

24. Health care is a national security issue.

Just like education, energy, defense, and the environment.

Have government produce the drug and sell it at an affordable price and to Hell with the profit-motive!

[RobinA]

25. My Uncle

Who was on Medicare, took an $80,000 a pop drug and several others that were several thousand per pill. I don't know who paid for it, but he surely did not. Couldn't quite figure out how that worked, but he got the drug and he wasn't wealthy.

[marions ghost]

41. Was he a vet?

Can't think of any other way...unless he was in an experimental program. Maybe?

[Zoeisright]

29. You better believe it.

Right now, health care in this country is rationed by cost, which is completely unethical.

[sendero]

33. Just part..

.. of our "name your price" health care system in which ALL provider of procedures, drugs, surgery and anasthesiology NAME THEIR PRICE.

Who is to stop them there is no free market competition as we understand it and the insurance companies are fine with it, the more they pay the more they make next year.

It's an insane system and whether you like it or see it or not, ACA is going to do almost nothing to stop it.

[Uncle Joe]

38. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, antigop.

[marions ghost]

42. India can continue to make the generic

--If you live in India you can get Gleevec for relatively low price. So it pays to have CML leukemia in India--NOT in the US--as my Dad unfortunately found out.

"Patient advocates argued a Novartis victdory would have amounted to evergreening, a reference to patent extensions based on minor changes, and inhibit access to Gleevec since generic drugmakers would be prevented from making copycats. Gleevec can cost up to $70,000 a year, while generic versions made by Indian companies cost about $2,500 a year. As for Novartis, the drugmaker now argues the decision will cause pharma to avoid making R&D investments in India."

http://www.pharmaphorum.com/2013/04/24/pharma-news-highlights-gleevec-pay-to-delay-human-gene-patents-and-data-analysis-errors/

[quadrature]

43. for some people, brand names are worth dying for

generics not good enough for some people.
whatever floats your boat