poledriver
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Aus - Cancer docs sick of high prices
DRUG companies charging over $100,000 per patient per year for life saving cancer treatments are undermining the viability of the health system, doctors have warned.
Cancer specialists have challenged drug companies to justify the high prices given the huge profits they are making.
And they are concerned leading edge cancer treatments might end up being available only to the wealthy.
The criticism was relayed to Access Economics researchers preparing a major report on the availability of cancer medicines in Australia.
"Very few (patients with cancer) have up to $120,000 of discretionary funds per year to access the treatment,” one doctor told the study.
"Some stakeholders were critical of the medicine industry’s justification for high prices, namely, to recoup their investment in developing the medicines and to build capacity for future innovations,” the report says.
The report says the initial phases of drug development were often undertaken at taxpayer funded universities and research institutions.
Medicine companies often only incurred the costs for undertaking Phase III trials, which is highly unlikely to be the often cited figure of $1 billion, the report says.
Pharmaceutical companies told the researchers the patient groups for new cancer treatments were often very small as medicine became more personalised and this made it hard to make a profit without charging high prices.
The duration of treatment was also shorter as many new medicines were end of life treatments.
Medicines Australia chief Dr Brendan Shaw said it cost $1.5 billion and fifteen years to get a new medicine to market and “that takes a lot of commercial risk”.
However, he said the industry was looking at how it could become more efficient.
Medical Oncology Group of Australia chair Professor Gary Richardson said “no health system can continue to pay over $100,000 a year for a drug”.
“With personalised medicine you may need four drugs and this discussion is important, all stakeholders need to sit down and talk,” he said.
He said his personal belief was that prices of over $100,000 for medicines could not be justified.
It was “very hard to believe” drug companies needed to charge this amount when some of them were making profits of over $85 billion a year, he said.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/he...es/story-fneuz9ev-1226691109490#ixzz2b4bhrF37
DRUG companies charging over $100,000 per patient per year for life saving cancer treatments are undermining the viability of the health system, doctors have warned.
Cancer specialists have challenged drug companies to justify the high prices given the huge profits they are making.
And they are concerned leading edge cancer treatments might end up being available only to the wealthy.
The criticism was relayed to Access Economics researchers preparing a major report on the availability of cancer medicines in Australia.
"Very few (patients with cancer) have up to $120,000 of discretionary funds per year to access the treatment,” one doctor told the study.
"Some stakeholders were critical of the medicine industry’s justification for high prices, namely, to recoup their investment in developing the medicines and to build capacity for future innovations,” the report says.
The report says the initial phases of drug development were often undertaken at taxpayer funded universities and research institutions.
Medicine companies often only incurred the costs for undertaking Phase III trials, which is highly unlikely to be the often cited figure of $1 billion, the report says.
Pharmaceutical companies told the researchers the patient groups for new cancer treatments were often very small as medicine became more personalised and this made it hard to make a profit without charging high prices.
The duration of treatment was also shorter as many new medicines were end of life treatments.
Medicines Australia chief Dr Brendan Shaw said it cost $1.5 billion and fifteen years to get a new medicine to market and “that takes a lot of commercial risk”.
However, he said the industry was looking at how it could become more efficient.
Medical Oncology Group of Australia chair Professor Gary Richardson said “no health system can continue to pay over $100,000 a year for a drug”.
“With personalised medicine you may need four drugs and this discussion is important, all stakeholders need to sit down and talk,” he said.
He said his personal belief was that prices of over $100,000 for medicines could not be justified.
It was “very hard to believe” drug companies needed to charge this amount when some of them were making profits of over $85 billion a year, he said.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/he...es/story-fneuz9ev-1226691109490#ixzz2b4bhrF37
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