Has the whistle been blown on high cancer drug prices?

The title of the Business Week article is alarming — "Soaring Cancer Drug Costs May Cripple Medicare." (The comments are also alarming and inflammatory, accusing oncologists of being the chief source of these rising costs.) A New England Journal of Medicine article notes that the price of cancer drugs has increased both because of increasing use (business is indeed booming) and rising prices. I strongly encourage you to read the NEJM article — it is fascinating and really allows you to understand the complexities in changing Medicare's payment strategies for chemotherapy. The author, Peter B. Bach, MD, MAPP, goes on to say that the larger driver of chemotherapy costs is "a unique legislative and regulatory framework that shields cancer drugs ... from the strategies that ... Medicare typically use(s) to hold down the price and utilization of drugs."

However, this issue of cost is not very surprising to me — over five years ago my mentor remarked to me in the middle of a busy breast cancer clinic, "How much longer can these drug prices continue to go up before someone blows a whistle?" I do believe that whistle has now been blown. The impact of high cancer drug prices does also filter down to patients and their families as well, as most patients have a copayment with their insurance. The solution is complicated without a clear winner in the lot (see the NEJM article for a full discussion of the options). Overall, the solution should be fair without putting too much of a crimp on innovation, as we have such a long way to go in the treatment of cancer.