Everyone wants in, but with no ground rules, the biosimilar business remains elusive.
Year: 2011
Type: article
Abstract: When Medco published its annual report on the dominant trends in drug spending, the pharmacy benefit manager swiftly turned its spotlight on the impact of rapidly rising cancer drug costs.
Cancer detection is getting better than ever, says Medco. As a result, more cancer patients are living, living longer, and requiring more treatment than ever before. By 2020, that trend will lead us to a day when some 18 million cancer survivors will be living in the United States, up from 13.8 million in 2010. And over the next few years, developers — who list more than 900 new cancer drugs in the pipeline — will be adding significantly to the list of specialty oncology therapeutics that helped trigger a 21.2 percent hike in cancer drug expenditures in 2010 alone.1
Pricey cancer drugs like lenalidomide (Revlimid) and imatinib (Gleevec) are becoming increasingly popular, notes Medco Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer Glenn Stettin, MD. And 9 out of every 10 new cancer drugs approved over the past seven years cost more than $20,000 for a 12-week course of treatment. In this scenario, cancer will become the second- or third-leading cost driver among the top three diseases, taking a prominent place in a mix that includes diabetes — the leader in a country that continues to get fatter at an alarming pace — and diseases of the central nervous system.
To get any kind of short-term price relief, Stettin tells Biotechnology Healthcare, payers are going to have to monitor dosages and overall usage carefully. Longer term, he says, the country needs a new generation of biosimilar drugs to come onto the market to reduce costs. This last part of Medco’s prescription for keeping spending in check, though, won’t come easy.
Source: PubMed Central
Author: John Carroll
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W337443539