Why are cancer drug prices rising?

Written by Ilana Landau, Editor

Analysis of revenue trends and the number of patients treated with targeted oncology therapies reveals that the ability of pharmaceutical companies to determine their own prices may not underlie rising cancer therapy costs. A new, retrospective study, published in The American Journal of Managed Care, has found a significant increase in oncology cost of treatment, despite a corresponding drop in pharmaceutical revenue over the same period.  The Genentech-funded study compared data on targeted cancer therapies marketed in three distinct periods: 1997–2002, 2003–2009 and 2010–2015. A significant increase in treatment cost was observed across the three periods studied; the episode treatment...

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