Kadcyla, a new drug for breast cancer, is to be blocked from program NHS access beneath draft advice issued by the National Institute for Wellness and Care Excellence (Good). Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA
In a statement issued by Roche and cited in your post (Nice rejects new breast cancer drug as also costly, 23 April), Professor Paul Ellis attempts to justify the £90,000-per-patient price of the cancer drug Kadcyla, insisting that it gives sufferers with useful additional time with their loved ones – “time that you are not able to put a price tag on”. I agree that you can’t put a value tag on a terminally ill person’s remaining months. But with Kadcyla’s £90,000 value tag, has not Roche completed just that?
New medicines can lessen patients’ side effects and prolong their lives. Indeed, considering the toxic regimens that medical doctors still have to use to deal with conditions like cancer and tuberculosis, it is clear that we require new treatment options. But what use is innovation if individuals can not entry these new medication because they are as well pricey? This has been a recognised problem in reduced- and middle-cash flow countries for some time. But increasingly individuals in countries like the United kingdom are locating they or their wellness programs can’t afford these charges both.
We’re told that if we don’t permit firms to charge enormous sums for medicines, then they can’t fund the research and advancement (R&D) essential to produce much more new medicines. But retail prices do not reflect the price of manufacturing – in truth, the price of producing a drug will be just a tiny fraction of what it goes for on the marketplace. Retail prices are set in accordance to the highest amount a industry will bear in the absence of price tag-reducing competitors.
Why do we proceed to accept a method the place, with no transparency on the expense of R&D, firms are allowed to promote new drugs under monopoly conditions and set their personal pricing, effectively holding governments and individuals to ransom? Eventually, we require to find a way to pay out for the growth of new medicines that isn’t going to put all the bargaining chips in pharma companies’ hands. It’s achievable, but to get there we need to have our governments to look at option organization versions that reward the development of new drugs without having conferring monopolies.
The system is broken and we require to resolve it, urgently. Time is passing and, clearly, it comes at a price.
Katy Athersuch
Access campaign, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without having Borders (MSF)
Massive pharma"s ransom for new medicines | @guardianletters
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