| Advertisement |
July 1 (UPI) -- Prices for new drugs approved for use in the treatment of cancer in the United States more than doubled over the past decade, according to an analysis published Thursday by JAMA Oncology. From 2009-10 to 2018-19, the lowest average monthly costs for new cancer drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rose to nearly $15,000 from about $6,000, the data showed.
Advertisement
This 150% increase in prices far outpaced those of other countries included in the analysis -- England, Germany and Switzerland -- in which monthly costs for new drugs rose by as much as 74%.
In addition, between 2009 and 2019, 74% of cancer drugs approved by the FDA saw price increases that were greater than the national inflation rate, researchers said.
"Not all marketed cancer drugs have a high clinical value, and high prices do not automatically mean that the specific drugs have a high clinical value," study co-author Dr. Kerstin N Vokinger told UPI in an email.
"It would support patients if they were better informed about the clinical benefit of a drug" before starting treatment and incurring costs, said Vokinger, a professor of law and medicine at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.
Recent research has documented a rise in out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs for consumers in the United States due to increased use of brand-name or newly approved drugs.
Cancer treatment costs also vary from center to center based on the treatments used, according to recent studies.
The findings of this study are based on a cost analysis of 65 cancer drugs approved by the FDA and the European Medicines Agency and Swissmedic between 2009 and 2019.
During that period, the lowest monthly treatment costs associated with newly approved drugs rose to $5,888 from $4,289 in Germany, to $6,593 from $5,784 in Switzerland and to $6,867 from $3,939 in England.
In Germany, none of the approved drugs saw price increases that outpaced inflation, and England had one drug that did so.
In Switzerland, seven of the approved drugs had price increases greater than the national inflation rate.
The "launch prices," or costs at the time of initial FDA approval, for cancer drugs were substantially higher in the United States than in similar, high-income European countries -- a gap that increased over the past decade, according to the researchers.
"The U.S. could learn from the drug [price] regulation experience of European countries," Vokinger said.
"For both initial costs and post-approval drug prices over time, there is no association between clinical benefit of cancer drugs and their prices [and], due to limited resources, it is important to prioritize drugs with high value," she said.
