Why Cancer Drug so Expensive?

The high cost of cancer drugs is related to numerous factors. It is very expensive to move findings from bench to bedside and to perform all the regulatory studies (including phase 1, 2, and 3 clinical trials) to gain approval. Second, because most cancers are incurable, patients are treated with each approved agent (sequentially or in combination), creating a virtual monopoly because the use of one drug does not automatically mean that the others are no longer needed. Third, even when the monopoly is broken with the arrival of “new and improved” versions of an approved drug, the older (and by now generic) drug tends to be viewed as substandard treatment, thereby perpetuating the situation. Fourth, the very nature of cancer, and the seriousness of the diagnosis, plays a role in that patients and physicians are often willing to pay the high price of treatment even for marginal improvements in outcome. Finally, our systems provide an incentive to administer more chemotherapy, and there are legal barriers that prevent agencies such as the FDA from taking economic and cost-effectiveness considerations into account when approving new drugs.