avastin: promising but expensive cancer drug

Filed in archive Treatment on February 17, 2006

The drug Avastin has been widely used for the treatment of colon cancer. Now it is a potential new treatment for lung and breast cancer too. However many are already cringing at the price that its maker, Genentech, plans to charge for it: about $100,000 a year; a price about double the current level as a colon cancer treatment.

Doctors, though, warn that some cancer patients are already being priced out of the Avastin market. Even some patients with insurance are thinking hard before agreeing to treatment, doctors say, because out-of-pocket co-payments for the drug could easily run $10,000 to $20,000 a year.

Until now, drug makers have typically defended high prices by noting the cost of developing new medicines. But executives at Genentech and its majority owner, Roche, are now using a separate argument - citing the inherent value of life-sustaining therapies.

Cancer treatment is definitely not cheap. But I guess there should be a compromise. Read more from the NY Times.

Read also the case of a breast cancer patient denied medicine by a British clinic because it was money that stood in the way.

Photo Source: Roche