Oncologist Calls Out Drug Makers for ‘Unsustainably High Prices’ at ASCO Meeting

A prominent oncologist made a bold move when he spoke out against the rising costs of new oncology treatments during a high-profile plenary session speech at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology—a gathering sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry and attended by some 25,000 physicians and scientists.

“These drugs cost too much,” said Leonard Saltz, MD, chief of gastrointestinal oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, according to the Wall Street Journal. “Cancer-drug prices are not related to the value of the drug. Prices are based on what has come before and what the seller believes the market will bear,” Dr. Saltz said.

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The median monthly cost of new oncology medications in the United States more than doubled between the periods of 2000 to 2004 and 2010 to 2014 to reach nearly $9900, he told the audience. Treatment with a new Opdivo®-Yervoy® regimen from Bristol-Myers, which was shown in a study to help patients with melanoma live a median 11.5 months before their health worsened, would, by Dr. Saltz’s reported estimates, run $295,000 a year per patient, or $174 billion annually if all patients with metastatic cancer took the regimen.

Prices like that are “unsustainably high,” he said, and he called on drug manufacturers, insurers, and physicians to work with the government to bring about change.

Meeting planner Alan Venook, MD, professor of medicine, University of California, San Francisco, told the Wall Street Journal that Dr. Saltz’s speech was unprecedented for a plenary session, which typically focuses on medical and scientific issues and often highlights advances in drug development.

“It is a tough balancing act for American Society of Clinical Oncology, where the meeting is largely funded by pharma. You can’t have a [plenary] talk trashing pharma, but you can have a talk by a respected person questioning it,” Dr. Venook told the publication.—Jolynn Tumolo

Reference

Walker J. High prices for drugs attacked at meeting. The Wall Street Journal. 2015 June 1.