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Cancer Drugs Keep Curbing Mortality Rates — But At A High Price
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New drugs are showing promise of improving the odds of surviving cancer, but they come with a price-tag equivalent of four years at one of the nation’s finest universities.
Medications called checkpoint inhibitors, which allow for the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells the same way it fights regular infections, are rapidly increasing cancer survival rates. Overall death rates from cancer from 2010-2014 have fallen by 1.8 percent per year for men and 1.4 percent per year for women. Death rates for 11 of the 16 most common cancer types in men and 13 of the 18 most common cancer types (including breast) in women are the decline. (RELATED: Survival Rates For Cancers Increase)
Despite a growing competition in the market, pricing of these groundbreaking drugs aren’t curbing as economists would expect. Prices of said drugs can top $250,000 a year, and each checkpoint inhibitor has a market list-price around $150,000.
Improvements in cancer-related drugs are thanks to work by pharmaceutical companies like Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck & Co, and Roche Holding AG, Reuters reports. The global market for cancer drugs is expected to grow from around $17 billion to $75.8 billion in 2022.
President Donald Trump has made health care a hall mark component of his administration’s legislative agenda. The president hosted pharmaceutical executives in the Oval Office in January to discuss ways of cutting drug prices.
The pharmaceutical industry claims that the exorbitant prices of some drugs are a result of the high cost of bringing a drug to market. It takes a major initial investment to research, discover, produce, test, and market a new drug.
While pharmaceutical companies have had some success in negotiating down the price of some older cancer treatments, it isn’t common for prices to go below a market-rate for newer, innovative treatment options.
There remains one bright spot. Medicare, the government-backed health care program for the poor and elderly, Part D covers most prescription drugs. Part D plans are required to cover all cancer-related drugs. Therefore, those who are the most at-risk of developing cancer–the elderly–are likely covered if a diagnoses occurs.
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