Reply #36: Thanks for the additional information, in reading a bit further it appears

[slipslidingaway]

that in many cases this particular drug may extend someone's life by months.

Also the biotech companies fought hard for an amendment in the proposed legislation. It would grant them a much longer time period to keep their information from other companies who could develop a "generic" drug, see the data exclusivity amendment.

I agree that we should be able to negotiate better prices for drugs, maybe that is just the American way.


http://stanford.wellsphere.com/healthcare-industry-poli...

"...It was originally approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in February of 2004 when a prospective clinical trial involving metastatic colon cancer patients showed Avastin increased survival from 15.6 to 20.3 months. It’s since been approved by the FDA for most types of lung cancer and for metastatic breast cancer. Avastin is NOT approved by the FDA for treatment of brain cancer gliomas, but it is widely used ‘off-label’ for a variety of kinds of cancers.

...Far be it from the DMCB to ‘price’ a living human being, but $90K is a lot of money for progression free or disease free survival that is typically measured in months. That’s true whether health insurers want to keep that money as a return on equity for their investors - or to make not-for-profit health insurance(where I worked)as affordable as possible."


From the comments section...

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/20...

"...Now, I know some people fear that without the guaranteed huge profits, biopharma might not make the bold investments to keeping expanding the envelope on health care, medications, cures. Before you view Avastin as some magic pill, know that its median benefit is to extend life by 4 months. I told that to my mom, in thinking about my father who died of CRC. "Four months? that's not long at all." And yet we'll pay 10,000s for the drug. The NHS made the calculation: the benefit does not exceed the cost. When the FDA grants a pharma co. the license, they're just saying, "Yes, your drug does marginally more good than harm, so you may sell it if you want." But it doesn't say, when granting you the license, "and, it's good deal." That's something we can't be afraid of answering. Because a mere 5 years ago, this drug did not exist, and we still functioned as a society..."