As therapies become more sophisticated and the
cancerous targets become more specific, costs are skyrocketing for
prolonging life, sometimes just weeks over what used to be possible.
Of the 12 new cancer drugs approved by the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2012, 11 were priced above $100,000
U.S. per patient annually.
Only three were found to improve patient
survival rates and, of those, two increased survival by less than two
months on average.
In just one decade, from 2005 to 2015, the
cost of intravenous cancer drugs has
tripled, from $112 million a year to $322 million.
Ipilimumab, marketed as Yervoy, is approved to
treat late-stage melanoma, a particularly deadly cancer. The cost for
four doses administered over 12 weeks: $120,000 (U.S.). The overall
survival benefit? Just 3.7 months on average, not much longer than the
length of the treatment.
There’s nivolumab, marketed as Opdivo and approved for use to treat late-stage melanoma.
The cost per year for an average patient: $157,000 (U.S.). The average amount of time
before the disease began to worsen for those taking it? Less than six
months in one recent clinical trial.
One new drug called cetuximab, which was being tested in a certain type of lung cancer.
In the trial, overall survival improved by
just 1.2 months on average. The cost for an extra 1.2 months of
survival? About $80,000 (U.S.).
“If we allow a survival advantage of 1.2
months to be worth $80,000, and by extrapolation survival of one year to
be valued at $800,000, we would need $440 billion annually, an amount
nearly 100 times the budget of the National Cancer Institute,
to extend
by one year the life of the 550,000 Americans who die of cancer
annually.
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