In the last five years the prostate cancer world has been blessed with some incredible pharmacetucal breakthroughs--Zytiga, Xofigo, Xtandi, Provenge and Jevtana, just to name a few. All these new medications are proven to prolong life and improve quality of life. In my day to day life practicing as a prostate oncologist, I have seen with my own eyes how these new medications have transformed "hopeless" situations into genuine cancer remissions.
The extremely high cost of these new pharmaceutical agents, however, is a hot topic that I have addressed in prevous blogs. A recent editorial from the Wall Street Journal addresses this issue with uncommon wisdom and aptly points out how potentially dangerous seemingly well-intentioned efforts to control costs can end up snuffing out the new drug development process.
Please click on the link HERE to read this short and extremely well-written editorial: http://goo.gl/F7pG8w
1 comment:
It is a well-written article. I'm curious as to why there is no reference to "buy and bill". How does that fall into all of this? Yes, in a perfect world, all cancer drugs would be affordable to patients. At the same time, why should oncologists profit from them too?
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