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New cancer immunotherapies such as checkpoint inhibitors are showing success in treating cancer, but can cost well over $100,000 a year:
Newer cancer drugs that enlist the body's immune system are improving the odds of survival, but competition between them is not reining in prices that can now top $250,000 a year.
The drugs' success for patients is the result of big bets in cancer therapy made by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, Merck & Co Inc and Roche Holding AG, among others in big pharma. The industry's pipeline of cancer drugs expanded by 63 percent between 2005 and 2015, according to the QuintilesIMS Institute, and a good number are reaching the market.
The global market for cancer immunotherapies alone is expected to grow more than fourfold globally to $75.8 billion by 2022 from $16.9 billion in 2015, according to research firm GlobalData.
[...] "Competition is key to lowering drug prices," Trump told pharmaceutical executives at an Oval Office meeting in January.
But that is not happening with new drugs called checkpoint inhibitors that work by releasing a molecular brake, allowing the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells the same way it fights infections caused by bacteria or viruses.
For cancers like melanoma, the treatments can mean long-term survival for around 20 percent of patients.
Bristol's Yervoy, first approved in 2011, targets a protein known as CTLA-4. Other immunotherapies, including Bristol's Opdivo, Keytruda from Merck, Roche's Tecentriq, and Pfizer Inc's Bavencio, involve a different protein called PD-1.
Other targets are being explored. Some new data will be presented this week in Washington at the American Association for Cancer Research's annual meeting.
Current checkpoint inhibitors each have a list price near $150,000 a year. A combination of Yervoy and Opdivo, approved by the Food and Drug Administration for advanced or inoperable melanoma, has a cost of $256,000 a year for patients who respond to the treatment.
Similar immunotherapies are in development at companies like AstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L). Merck, which declined to comment on pricing plans, expects an FDA decision by May 10 on its combination of Keytruda and chemotherapy as an initial treatment for the most common form of lung cancer - by far the biggest market for cancer drugs.
Pfizer said Bavencio, cleared by the FDA earlier this month to treat Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare type of skin cancer, has a price "comparable to other checkpoint inhibitors approved for different indications."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday April 04 2017, @06:16PM (6 children)
First off, I was talking about the market for a specific product, not the markets in general. Patent protection is by definition a government-guaranteed monopoly on the product. Competition by definition involves more than 1 participant. Hence, a patented product is not subject to competition, which makes it not a free market at all. The world at large is not a counterexample: The patent on an iPhone of course has no effects on the price of a bushel of peaches, but definitely have an effect on the price of an iPhone.
As for your counterproposals:
1. In other words, eliminate the NIH, since all pure research on health and human biology is tapped by companies to develop treatments. Which, since that research is risky, is unlikely to be undertaken by any private company. Which means that the research won't happen at all, and instead of developing new treatments the companies will instead ruthlessly expand patent protection so they can continue to sell their older products forever. That doesn't seem smart.
2. I have no idea what "man up and accept the consequences" means, other than "don't change anything". But since the situation that currently exists is demonstrably not ideal, that doesn't seem smart either.
Competitive markets are efficient only when both buyers and sellers have the ability to refuse to engage in a specific transaction. What makes health care different is that the buyer has no ability to make that choice, because the alternative to buying the product in question is their own death.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 04 2017, @07:31PM (5 children)
First off, I was talking about the market for a specific product, not the markets in general.
Medicine is not about using a specific product. It's about trying to stay healthy. Just because someone has a temporary patent on a treatment doesn't mean that the treatment is the only approach or that the patent precludes anyone else from developing their own treatment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @04:11AM (4 children)
I take Xyrem for narcolepsy. The drug company has several patents and charges $12,000 per month. It is a Schedule 3 drug with a prescription and the diagnosis of narcolepsy, but any abuse, misuse, redistribution, etc. is subject to Schedule 1 penalties. The molecule is easy to synthesize, but there's no way in hell I would risk going to jail over it. The only other treatments are stimulants such as methylphenidate or amphetamine, to which one inevitably develops a tolerance. Xyrem is the only effective treatment, and our government gives Jazz Pharmaceuticals a limitless right to profit from it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 05 2017, @04:35AM (3 children)
Finally, Jazz's patents will run out. Then generics can take over.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @04:47PM (2 children)
You have not had the pleasure of replacing restorative sleep with stimulants on a long-term basis. It doesn't work. This is a far more significant reality than something that can be dismissed with "despite their drawbacks". Xyrem actually improves sleep quality, degradation of which is the primary symptom of narcolepsy.
The insurance company is paying for the medicine. It typically takes a month of appeals to get them to do so...
My doctor told me the FDA is not going to allow generic manufacturers to enter the market after Jazz's patents run out due to concerns about diversion of this regulated substance.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 05 2017, @09:45PM (1 child)
My doctor told me the FDA is not going to allow generic manufacturers to enter the market after Jazz's patents run out due to concerns about diversion of this regulated substance.
So what you're saying is that it's the War on Drugs rather than patents which make Jazz so unassailable. And the FDA is still concerned about near irrelevant matters while killing people with expensive drugs. Still not seeing it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @04:22PM
The current government in the U.S. wants to both gut my access to healthcare (I get insurance through the affordable care act) and cut aspects of the social safety net. I suppose they want me to starve? I'm doing well with proper treatment and consider my current situation far preferable to going on disability. Single payer can't come soon enough. I would love to see the greedy pharmaceutical companies negotiating with an 800 lb gorilla of a national healthcare system.