FEATURE
Medicare, the largest U.S. payer for
anticancer drugs, from negotiating on
drug prices for drugs covered under
the Part D benefit.
This has made pharmaceutical companies like “a kid in a candy
store,” Dr. Kantarjian said, with most
newly approved drug prices being
set based on “reference pricing” or
the use of the price of the last similar
drug in the market, plus an increase
of about 10 to 20 percent.4
Unfortunately, the increasing drug
prices are not necessarily associated
with an increased survival benefit,
Dr. Rajkumar said. As an example,
while one of the most recent drugs
approved for multiple myeloma had
only modest efficacy with substantive
concerns about safety, but is priced
at the s