[Ip-health] The cost of the newest cancer drugs

[Dr Dirk Van Duppen]

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The cost of the newest cancer drugs

Lancet 2007; 370: 317-318.

Dirk Van Duppen (a) and Marijke Avonts (a)

Your Editorial =93Cancer treatment: not just a question of costs=94 (May 19=
, p
1665)(1) does not reveal the core of the debate. Why are the newest cancer
drugs so expensive? The price of trastuzumab, in Belgium, is =8035000 per
patient per year. Yet trastuzumab is the result of 20 years of basic
research by scientists of different universities, financed mainly by public
money.(2) Genentech requested a patent on the drug, and claimed it spent
US$150=96200 million in developing it. Roche is now commercialising
trastuzumab, the sale of which is generating $2 billion per year. Thus the
sales price of trastuzumab is independent of the real development costs.
Roche request the highest price the public health insurance system is
willing to pay. This not a matter of the high cost of innovation, but of
patent abuse.

When innovative drugs are putting the sustainability of the public health
insurance system in danger, the government needs to act, if necessary with
compulsory licences. Kesselheim and Avorn pose the question: =93When free
enterprise and the freedom to live clash, which freedom will we limit?=94(3=
)
The role of compulsory licences is a legal matter, but its application
demands political effort.

We declare that we have no conflict of interest.

References
1. The Lancet. Cancer treatment: not just a question of costs. Lancet 2007;
369: 1665.
2. Goozner M. In: The $800 million pill: the truth behind the cost of new
drugs. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004: 193-197.
3. Kesselheim AS, Avorn J. Biomedical patents and the public=92s health: is
there a role for eminent domain?. JAMA 2006; 295: 434-437.

Affiliations

(a) Group Practice =93Doctors for the People=94, St Rochusstraat 57=9659, B=
-2100
Deurne, Belgium

Dr. Dirk Van Duppen
St. Rochusstraat 57-59
B-2100 Deurne           Belgi=EB
tel: 03.320.85.20 (praktijk), 03.322.92.42 (thuis)
Fax: 03.482.01.03
GSM: 0473.562106
e mail: dirk.vanduppen@gvhv.be
www.dirkvanduppen.be



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