Cancer Drug Prices “Not Rational”

by Admin | April 13, 2015 2:44 pm

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[1], 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.

Source URL: https://340binformed.org/2015/04/cancer-drug-prices-not-rational/

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