The average price of a new, cutting edge cancer drug is more than $100,000, according to The Journal of Clinical Oncology. Some “launch prices” for cancer drugs are going as high as $400,000 a year.
Dr. Mikkael Sekeres, the Director of the Leukemia Program at Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center, says the astronomical price of treating cancer needs to play a role in which treatment physicians recommend. “I would be a pretty bad doctor if I didn’t talk about the cost of drugs with my patients,” Dr. Sekeres says. The United States is at a particular disadvantage when it comes to drug costs because the Food and Drug Administration can approve drugs without considering cost. Dr. Sekeres says there are drugs that get approved by the FDA and are marketed heavily that may not actually extend a person’s life any more than a cheaper alternative. Avoiding marketing gimmicks has unfortunately become a part of the process when deciding on cancer treatment.
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