One of the nation’s top cancer hospitals is challenging the pharmaceutical industry to adopt a more rational approach to drug pricing.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York has created an interactive calculator that compares the cost of more than 50 cancer drugs with what the prices would be if they were tied to factors such as the side effects the drugs produce, and the amount of extra life they give patients. In many cases, the website calculates a price that is lower than the drug’s market price.

The project, led by Peter Bach, a physician and director of the hospital’s Center for Health Policy and Outcomes, is the latest salvo from doctors and others against the escalating costs of cancer drugs, which increasingly carry price tags of $100,000 or more per patient for a year or a course of treatment. A colleague of Dr. Bach’s at Memorial Sloan Kettering recently blasted cancer drug prices as excessive in a speech before thousands of cancer doctors at a meeting in Chicago.

In an interview, Dr. Bach said prices for many new cancer drugs don’t reflect their value to doctors and patients. “Right now, manufacturers have total price control, and total control of prices has led to irrational pricing behaviors,” he said.

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