More Than 100 Doctors Tell Big Pharma To Stop Making Cancer Drugs So Expensive
The pressure is mounting on pharmaceutical companies to lower their prices for lifesaving drugs, as a group of more than 100 prominent oncologists is calling for grassroots solutions to the skyrocketing cost of cancer treatment.
In an editorial published on Thursday in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 118 doctors from top hospitals around the country argue that up to 20 percent of cancer patients
don’t follow their recommended treatment regimen because they’re being
priced out of the drugs they need. The oncologists say this financial
burden puts sick Americans in an untenable situation as they’re fighting
for their lives.
“It’s time for patients and their physicians to call for change,” Dr.
Ayalew Tefferi, a doctor at the Mayo Clinic and the lead author of the
paper, concluded.
In the editorial, Tefferi and his colleagues call for several policy
changes to help address the problem. They say the United States should
establish a new regulatory body to help set drug prices after new
medications are approved for the market, as well as allow cheaper drugs
to be imported from other countries like Canada. They also recommend
allowing Medicare to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies,
which could help the government program use its bargaining power to
demand lower prices.
According to a poll released last week from the Kaiser Family Foundation, the majority of Americans agree
that Medicare should have the power to help negotiate down drug prices.
This particular reform has encountered political resistance because of
concerns over government interference in the private marketplace.
Eighty-seven percent of participants in Kaiser’s survey, however, said
they want Medicare to pressure Big Pharma for discounts on costly drugs.
