DRUGS/PHARMA/POLITICS: “A panel that advises the White House on cancer policy said urgent action is needed to curb a dramatic rise in the price of cancer drugs, which can cost more than $100,000 a year and mean thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket payments for many patients…
The panel broadly recommended that drug companies should be paid based on the value of drugs to patients, but didn’t lay out concrete actions for policy makers to take.
The panel dates back to the Nixon administration’s ‘War on Cancer’. It panel meets periodically and makes reports with recommendations to the president on ways to reduce the disease and its impact on Americans.
The panel is led by Dr. Barbara K. Rimer, dean and professor of public health at the University of North Carolina. She and the two other members who contributed to the report were appointed to the panel by President Barack Obama.
PhRMA, the drug-industry organization, said in a statement that the cancer death rate has fallen because of new therapies that ‘attack disease at the molecular level and are tailored to the unique needs of individual patients.’ But it said ‘better frameworks are needed for assessing the value of medical tests, medicines and health-care services.’ “
-Thomas M. Burton, “Cancer Panel Calls for Measures to Lower Drug Costs,” The Wall Street Journal online, Mar. 13, 2018 07:56am