Researchers explored a possible connection between the cost of cancer drugs and their measured efficacy. The retrospective, cross-sectional analysis covered all 119 individual oncology medications that received FDA clearance from January 2015 through December 2020. The overall median cost of an intervention was $196,000 per year; but the price level was lower, at $185,000, for drugs approved on the basis of overall survival (OS) and higher, at $203,000, for those approved on the basis of progression-free survival (PFS). However, there was no significant association between oncology drug prices and the extent of benefit, no matter if that benefit was measured in terms of OS, PFS, or overall response rate. Variability in drug effectiveness accounted for less than 15% of price variability, the study authors estimated.Um, what?
"This suggests that cancer drugs are priced based predominantly on what the market will bear," they noted.Oh, so a bunch of eggheads spent time and probably a fair amount of money to tell us, wait, I'm sorry, "suggest" that we get fucked when it comes to paying for drugs. Someone's carrer was advanced by this.
Sigh.
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