The rising cost of cancer drugs continues to draw criticism from leading academic researchers, and threatens health care budgets. In a new study, researchers found that the price of older drugs increased more in a 5-year period than that of newer drugs, with some of the drugs undergoing dramatic increases.
-----
Related Content
To Increase Innovation and Make Drugs More Affordable, Deregulate
Reducing Waste in Oncology Drug Use
-----
“New drug pricing seems to bear no relationship to novelty or efficacy, or in other words, drug prices are disconnected from the benefits provided,” said Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH, Knight Cancer Institute, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, and colleagues in a Research Letter published in JMAM Oncology. “At the same time, price increases for older drugs have been less often discussed, but budgetary impacts can be quite large.”
To see whether price hikes for older drugs are a common problem, the researchers analyzed the change in average sales price of cancer drugs between 2010 and 2015, looking at Part B drugs listed at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website during that period. Any anticancer drug listed in both years (n=86) was included. Additionally, the investigators looked at whether older drugs were more likely to undergo price increases than newer drugs. All prices were adjusted for inflation.
Of the 86 drugs, 31 (36%) decreased in price, and 55 (64%) increased in price from 2010 to 2015. Eleven drugs had price hikes of more than 100% during the same time period. The researchers classified 43 drugs as older, having been approved between March 1949 and November 1992. Newer drugs were approved between December 1992 and December 2008. Data showed that older drugs increased in price more than newer drugs (22.7% vs 6.2%). For example, they pointed out that cyclophosphamide, which was approved in 1959, increased 300% after adjusting for inflation. But in absolute dollar terms, Medicare Part B spending on this drug increased from $1 million to $90 million.
“Our results suggest that solutions to the high price of cancer drugs must also consider the rising price of older drugs,” concluded the researchers.
