Challenging Perceptions About Oncology Product Pricing in Breast and Colorectal Cancer

Although significant progress has been made in the past decade in the treatment of both common and rare cancers, there has been significant concerns about the cost, and especially the value, of certain new oncology drugs. These concerns touch upon a number of issues regarding the price of these medicines, the value they deliver and the ability of healthcare systems to fund them. This paper looks at these perceptions and the extent to which they apply across different oncology products. Whilst it is acknowledged there is evidence that the launch price of pharmaceutical treatments for some forms of cancer has been rising in recent years, this is not uniformly the case; we find evidence to the contrary for some forms of cancer. This is illustrated by the cases of breast and colorectal cancer. We find cancer medicine prices depend on a number of factors, including pre-existing treatment options within a therapeutic class. Indeed, a number of studies have focused on the cost of treatment per month of overall survival gained as a simple (although partial) metric to judge value for money. Given the importance of oncology products being used in combination, developing similar approaches to capturing the overall cost of treatment will be crucial.