Posted on 03/11/2006 12:57:14 PM PST by Racehorse
On Feb. 3, Joyce Elkins filled a prescription for a two-week supply of nitrogen mustard . . . The cost was $77.50.
On Feb. 17, Ms. Elkins, a 64-year-old retiree . . . returned to her pharmacy for a refill. This time . . . the cost was $548.01.
Ms. Elkins's insurance does not cover nitrogen mustard, which she must take for at least the next six months at a cost that will now total nearly $7,000. She and her husband . . . are paying for the medicine by spending less on utilities and food, she said.
The medicine . . . was developed more than 60 years ago and is among the oldest chemotherapy drugs. For decades, it has been blended into an ointment by pharmacists and used as a topical treatment for a cancer called cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, a form of cancer that mainly affects the skin.
Last August, Merck, which makes Mustargen, sold the rights to manufacture and market it and Cosmegen, another cancer drug, to Ovation Pharmaceuticals, a six-year-old company in Deerfield, Ill., that buys slow-selling medicines from big pharmaceutical companies. The two drugs are used by fewer than 5,000 patients a year and had combined sales of about $1 million in 2004.
[. . .]
The increase has stunned doctors, who say it starkly illustrates two trends in the pharmaceutical industry: The soaring price of cancer medicines and the tendency for those prices to have little relation to the cost of developing or making the drugs.
Genentech, for example, has indicated it will effectively double the price of its colon cancer drug Avastin, to about $100,000, when Avastin's use is expanded to breast and lung cancer patients. As with Avastin, nothing about nitrogen mustard is changing but the price.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
My brother-in-law was on Avastin...fortunately as part of a clinical trial. His current cancer therapy rings in at $7,000/month. Initially his insurance company balked at paying the cost, but now is picking up at least part of the tab.
This is why you move to Cuba. /s
This will come as a schock to some freepers, but, the cost of RX drugs will drop like a rock when we can get the lawyers out of the health care biz
Yea that's it, the hydrogen mustard litigation caused the over 500% price rise. It may come a schock to some freepers, but the cost of RX drugs will rise like a ballon when companies bilk patients that have no other options.
While the sarcasm is noted, the US could learn something from Cuba's healthcare system. It's emphasis on preventative medicine is frankly one that kicks the daylights out of our "treat it after is shows up" mentality.
Just as a for instance, treating patients with elevated insulin levels who haven't yet experienced a noted rise in blood sugar has numerous health benefits but is not practiced much here... yet.
What shocks me is that no other producer has come online to provide this drug. If this company is really making so much easy money, where are the competitors? There must be more to the story.
What shocks me is that no other producer has come online to provide this drug. If this company is really making so much easy money, where are the competitors? There must be more to the story.
Read the story.
Only one company has the right to manfacture it.
I have RCC (Kidney Cancer) and was going to talk about the high cost of Avastin...it's not yet been approved for RCC so patients are having to tackle the costs themselves, $7,000 to $14,000 a month. Nexavar and Sutent cost in the neighborhood of $7500 a month. No wonder insurance companies balk. I appreciate the cost of R&D and I'm grateful that companies are willing to do it, but geez, c'mon. $14,000 for 60 400 mg tablets?
No, the first guy was right. The cost of drugs is severely impacted by the amount of legal staff needed (as well as the amount of statutory-required staff) to produce products.
Do you have any idea how many people are required to make just one tablet?
The answer may surprise you.
If the drug is 60 years old, and assuming it doesn't cost a fortune to manufacture, this would be a niche opportunity for a manufacturer of generic pharmaceuticals. Unless, of course, there is a unusual liability risk, or regulatory problems, or other artificial barriers.
Understood, but all things being equal nothing changed overnight for this 60+ year old generic drug other than the change of ownership. There is zero evidence ofcorrelation between the astronomical price rise and litigation, which, of course, existed before it was sold to the new company.
Lawyers add to the cost of drugs and treatment, paying doctors millions a year in salary, which is what a top-tier oncologist makes, probably adds to the cost as well.
I don't know what the solution is but it seems like a lot of money to pay for chemicals that can't possibly cost that much to produce. I understand research is expensive but my wife donated her time and well-being on more than a few drug trials.
Wrong. The patents have long expired. Anyone can make it, they just can't call it Mustragen.
Cuba's healthcare system is nothing more than a large number of poorly trained practitioners who do not have the resources to deliver either preventive or theraputic medicine.
The emphasis of Cuba's "healthcare system" is to generate propaganda and the illusion of healthcare that is "free".
Lawyers AND the GOVERNMENT!
I don't know what your definition of a "top-tier oncologist" is, but the average salary of an oncologist is $232 000 and the 75%ile is $298 000, according to the Watson-Wyatt survey, current through February 2006.
The head clinicians at NCI, Sloan-Kettering, and MD Anderson likely make much less.
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