Using generic cancer drug could save many millions of dollars
By a
The researchers, publishing online this month in the
This means that a health insurer with 100 patients with chronic myeloid leukemia could save
"If we start all patients on the generic form of Gleevec and it works, then they are on a generic for the rest of their lives," says study leader
While Gleevec was the first drug to successfully treat CML, two other drugs in the same category, known as tyrosine kinase inhibitors, have come on the market in recent years: dasatinib (sold as Sprycel) and nilotinib (sold as Tasinga). Generic versions of these drugs will not be available for many years; the branded versions cost roughly
Also, CML patients tend to switch drugs during the course of treatment if there are side effects or if one drug doesn't appear to be effective, meaning that over the course of five years, roughly 50 percent of patients will take Gleevec for some or all of the time.
Padula and his colleagues, including
For the study, the researchers compared cost-effectiveness of the different medications by analyzing Truven Health Analytics MarketScan data from newly diagnosed CML patients between
Last year, Gleevec lost patent protection in
Despite efforts to control costs, total prescription drug spending in
"There is minimal risk to starting all patients on imatinib first," Padula says. "If the patient can't tolerate the medication or it seems to be ineffective in that patient, then we can switch the patient to a more expensive drug. Insurance companies have the ability to dictate which drugs physicians prescribe first, and they regularly do. Doing so here would mean very little risk to health and a lot of cost savings."
The car industry, Padula says, bases the price of its models on how much it costs to make each one, with a little bit of profit thrown in. Drug prices have little to do with the actual cost of what goes into manufacturing and distributing their product. Drug companies argue that prices take into account the cost of research and development, as well as the value provided to the patient.
"When patent protection is lost, the prices are set closer to the true cost of the drug," Padula says. "They're making '
Keywords for this news article include: Cancer, Oncology, Legal Issues,
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