Potential Solutions for Sustaining the Costs of Cancer Drugs

Abstract

The growing burden of cancer urgently requires sustainable solutions to ensure continued access to effective and safe treatments for all patients within Europe. The aim of this article, the third in a series of perspectives, is to discuss potential approaches to sustain cancer care and increase patient access to treatments. Much work remains to ensure the sustainability ceiling (where costs of care exceed the benefits) is not reached. Immediate steps must be taken to avoid this, including patient education to encourage earlier diagnosis, use of treatment-response biomarkers, improving efficiency of healthcare systems, use of managed-entry agreements, introduction of value-based medicines with measurable outcomes and use of less expensive medicines. Here we discuss these potential solutions with a focus on reducing the cost of cancer drugs, using biosimilar medicines as an example. Biosimilar and generic medicines offer a cost-effective treatment option that may help combat the substantially increasing costs of cancer drugs. Competition from biosimilar medicines is expected to drive a decrease in the cost of medicines, resulting in increased affordability and access to therapy, and therefore a greater number of patients could be treated. However, various barriers must be overcome to increase the uptake of biosimilar medicines and education is needed to allay misperceptions and encourage greater use.

Pilot study assessing the direct medical cost of treating patients with cancer in Kenya; findings and implications for the future

“…The cost of medicines is a major concern in LMICs countries including Kenya and worldwide as typically there are high co-payment levels and low incomes (5,(14)(15)(16). Prices of cancer medicines have risen up to ten fold during the past ten years in some countries despite often limited health gain (17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23), although this is not universal (24). Having said this, some pharmaceutical companies are giving up their patents for biological medicines to ease the patient burden as seen in India with trastuzumab (5).…”

Cancer drug development: The missing links

“…However, impact of biomarker screening may depend on the approval status of a drug in relation to the discovery of the biomarker. 277 Aforementioned, FDA approved pembrolizumab based on molecular biomarker for patients bearing MSI-H or dMMR solid tumors which have progressed on prior therapy. Approval of such drugs has interweaved the translation of basic science to clinical settings, restricting treatment on the basis of genetic subgroups and the flexibility of the FDA to approve drugs on the basis of early as well as favorable data.…”

Rituximab biosimilars for lymphoma in Europe

“…A recent European assessment of biosimilar pricing in rheumatoid arthritis reported an average 86% reduction in the retail price of biosimilar rituximab versus the reference product [95]. Such cost reductions may lead to increased patient access to biologic therapies [96][97][98]. However, despite Europe representing a substantial proportion of the global biosimilars market, global data evaluating the economic impact of biosimilar use in oncology and hematology versus reference products are limited.…”