Posted by Michael Wonder on 24 Jan 2019
The WHO says cancer drug prices are ‘impairing’ access to treatment
23 January 2019 - In a sobering report, the World Health Organization concluded that pricing for cancer medicines is “impairing” the ability of governments to provide affordable treatments and recommended a host of potential measures for widening access, such as greater transparency about discounts and R&D costs, differential pricing among countries, and short-term price caps, among other things.
The report, which was issued on the eve of a WHO board meeting, concluded that the “market structure of cancer medicines is characterised by imperfect competition” and there is evidence that individual companies hold a monopoly over specific categories of treatments.
The analysis found just three companies accounted for about half of the global market for cancer medicines, based on 2017 sales.
