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Doctors Tried To Lower $148K Cancer Drug Cost; Makers Tripled Its Price (arstechnica.com)
Slashdot reader Applehu Akbar writes: Imbruvica, a compound that treats white blood cell cancers, has until now been a bargain at $148,000 per year. Until now, doctors have been able to optimize dosage for each patient by prescribing up to four small-dose pills of it per day.
But after results from a recent small pilot trial indicated that smaller doses would for most patients work as well as the large ones, its manufacturer, Janssen and Pharmacyclics, has decided on the basis of the doctors' interest in smaller dosages to reprice all sizes of the drug to the price of the largest size. This has the effect of tripling the price for patients, and doctors have now put off any plans for further testing of lower dosages.
The researchers are retaliating by urging clinical investigators to test whether the expensive pill could be safely given every other day -- and by calling on America's public health regulators to investigate the drug's pricing.
But after results from a recent small pilot trial indicated that smaller doses would for most patients work as well as the large ones, its manufacturer, Janssen and Pharmacyclics, has decided on the basis of the doctors' interest in smaller dosages to reprice all sizes of the drug to the price of the largest size. This has the effect of tripling the price for patients, and doctors have now put off any plans for further testing of lower dosages.
The researchers are retaliating by urging clinical investigators to test whether the expensive pill could be safely given every other day -- and by calling on America's public health regulators to investigate the drug's pricing.
We already fund up to 80% of pharmaceutical R&D through our taxes. You forget that the pharmaceutical lobby is the most powerful one in Washington. It's a rigged system and we pay the price. Privatize the profits, socialize the losses.
I live in Japan, where the government is allowed to negotiate prices and can declare certain things (such as MRIs) benefits to the common good and therefore mandate that they be made cheaply available. Finally, drug patents only last for three years. One of the reasons the TPP would be bad news for the other countries: the US wants everyone to extend the patents to 12.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life