Oncologist Brings the Debate Over Increasing Drug Prices Back to Patients

Dr. Andrew Pecora, an oncologist and chief innovation officer at the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center, suggests that the debate over rising cancer drug prices isn’t paying enough attention to their payoff for patients.
According to an article on MedCity News:

The biopharma industry is bearing the brunt of criticism for these [increasing cancer treatment] costs – because incremental increases in outcomes aren’t matching up with the exorbitant increases in cost.
But Pecora said we’re missing the big picture here – that while cancer drug costs are on the rise, we aren’t taking into account the overall cost of care, or the individual benefit on a patient’s life.
[…] Pecora cited Sovaldi as an example of rising costs being validated by the outcome – the breakthrough drug does, indeed, cure Hepatitis C despite its steep$84,000 price tag. This idea should be extrapolated to cancer care, he said.

Click here to read the full article on MedCity News.