Doctors Support Lower Cancer Drug Prices
According to the National Cancer Institute, in this year alone, an estimated 1,658,370 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the United States. As the population keeps aging, that number will continue to grow. Pharmaceutical and biotech companies are developing new therapies faster than ever before but the prices of these drugs keep rising.
In a paper published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings earlier this month, three University of California, San Diego School of Medicine School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center oncologists, John Adamson, MD, Thomas Kipps, MD, PhD, and Scott Lippman, MD, along with dozens of other physicians signed their names in support of lower prices for cancer drugs.
According to the authors, cancer drug prices have increased by an average of $8,500 per year over the past 15 years. Last year, the cost of all new US Food and Drug Administration approved therapies were priced at more than $120,000 per year of use. The costs are unaffordable for most people who have out-of-pocket expenses or no medical coverage at all.
The authors say that 10 to 20 percent of patients with cancer do not take their drugs as prescribed or don’t use them at all because of cost. If nearly 40 percent of the population is expected to be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lifetimes, it is easy to see that many people will not be able to afford life-saving therapies when the average annual household income is $52,000.
To help alleviate the problem, the authors’ suggest that the government make changes to the approval process of new treatments, allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, consider prices when designing treatment guidelines and allow importation of cancer drugs for personal use. There are a lot of organizations that need to be involved to lower cancer drug prices including a cancer patient-based grassroots movement.
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