Posted by Michael Wonder on 12 Apr 2018
As cancer drug prices climb, value not keeping pace
13 April 2018 - The cost of new anti-cancer drugs increased more than five-fold from 2006 to 2015, but a new analysis suggests that cancer patients and insurers may be getting less for their money.
Anticancer medications account for the lion’s share of global drug spending, and the average price per month of these drugs is known to have more than doubled in recent years, Dr. Kelvin Chan of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto and colleagues note in the Journal of Oncology Practice.
“To justify the increasing prices of novel oncology drugs, a parallel increasing trend in clinical benefit would be expected to ensure that value of these new treatments is maintained over time,” the study team writes.
