Lilly Lung-Cancer Drug Stirs Price Debate -- Update
August 27 2015 - 1:35PM
Dow Jones News
By Peter Loftus
An experimental Eli Lilly & Co. lung cancer drug hasn't
reached the market, but some doctors are already weighing in on how
much it should cost--arguing the price should be below average
because the drug extended patient lives by only six to seven weeks
in a clinical trial.
The pre-emptive price proposal--published on Thursday by the
medical journal JAMA Oncology--is a sign of the rising debate over
drug pricing. Cancer doctors have become increasingly vocal in
their criticism, saying the costs don't seem to be tied to the
benefits provided by the drugs. Last month, more than 100
oncologists published an editorial in a medical journal calling for
measures to control prices.
Indianapolis-based Lilly has applied for U.S. regulatory
approval to market the drug, necitumumab, for the treatment of a
form of advanced lung cancer and expects a Food and Drug
Administration decision by the end of this year.
A Lilly spokeswoman said it was premature to discuss pricing
because the drug hasn't been approved yet.
In a clinical trial, patients who received necitumumab on top of
chemotherapy lived six to seven weeks longer, on average, than
patients who received chemotherapy alone, extending median overall
survival to about 11 1/2 months from the start of treatment.
The Lilly drug also increased the risk for certain adverse
events such as blood clots.
Based on the clinical data, the price of necitumumab should be
no more than about $1,745 a month per patient, doctors and
researchers from Emory University and Georgia Institute of
Technology say in the JAMA Oncology paper.
In comparison, most new cancer drugs cost more than $10,000 a
month per patient in the U.S., said Daniel Goldstein, an oncologist
and research fellow at the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory
University and lead author of the paper.
Necitumumab "should have a relatively low price given the low
level of efficacy that it's providing," he said in an interview.
Conversely, Dr. Goldstein said drugs providing greater efficacy
should command higher prices, under what he and others call a
"value-based" drug pricing system.
"The notion of value-based pricing would incentivize researchers
and industry to develop truly game-changing innovation" and reduce
the incentive for treatments "which add just a few weeks of life
for patients," he said.
A Lilly spokeswoman said the pricing of cancer medicines is
complex, and it is difficult to assess value. She said the form of
lung cancer that necitumumab treats--known as squamous non-small
cell lung cancer--is difficult to treat, and few advances have been
made in recent years.
Several members of an expert committee advising the FDA said at
a meeting in July that the survival benefit for necitumumab
appeared modest, but that it was important for doctors and patients
to have more treatment options for a difficult form of lung cancer.
The panel didn't conduct a vote on whether the FDA should approve
the drug.
Write to Peter Loftus at peter.loftus@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 27, 2015 13:20 ET (17:20 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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