13 June 2016 - Cancer drugs have mostly been immune to the pricing pressure affecting many drugmakers. That's likely to change, even for new and potentially curative drugs.

Bristol-Myers Squibb CEO Giovanni Caforio recently told Bloomberg News he doesn't expect to see intense pressure to cut cancer-drug prices. He had better hope not: Bristol-Myers is a leader in immuno-oncology (IO) drugs, which boost the immune system to fight cancer.

The drugs can be highly effective, but at a mind-blowing cost. Bristol-Myers sells a combination of two, Opdivo and Yervoy, that costs $256,000 per patient in the U.S. Cancer drugs do face far less price pressure than medicines that target bigger populations. But the prices of these drugs are growing at an unsustainable clip. The IO market is getting crowded and competitive.

Bristol-Myers is already competing for patients with Merck, which has an IO drug similar to Opdivo. Roche just had its own IO drug approved by the FDA, and the market will eventually balloon into a five-way scrap involving Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

For more details, go to: http://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-06-13/cancer-drugs-can-t-stay-this-expensive-forever