Drug companies and private cancer clinics often point fingers at safety-net hospitals in the 340B program for the rising cost of cancer care. A new study in JAMA Oncology, however, lays the blame back on industry’s doorstep.
With new cancer drugs now routinely costing more than $100,000 a year, researchers at the National Cancer Institute set out to learn whether such prices were justified because the medicines were either first-in-class or markedly superior to what was already on the market. Their conclusion? Prices for new cancer drugs over the past five years are divorced from a drug’s novelty or efficacy. “Our results suggest that current pricing models are not rational but simply reflect what the market will bear,” the researchers wrote.