Cancerworld Magazine
  • About the Magazine
    • About us
    • Editorial Team
    • Events
    • Archive
    • Contacts
  • Articles
    • Policy
    • Practice Points
    • Delivery of Care
    • Biology basic
    • Medicine
    • Featured
  • Contents
    • News
    • Editorials
    • Interviews to the Expert
    • In the Hot Seat
    • Profiles
    • Obituaries
    • Voices
  • ESO College Corner
SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Cancerworld Magazine
Cancerworld Magazine
  • About the Magazine
    • About us
    • Editorial Team
    • Events
    • Archive
    • Contacts
  • Articles
    • Policy
    • Practice Points
    • Delivery of Care
    • Biology basic
    • Medicine
    • Featured
  • Contents
    • News
    • Editorials
    • Interviews to the Expert
    • In the Hot Seat
    • Profiles
    • Obituaries
    • Voices
  • ESO College Corner
Cancerworld Magazine > News > Cancer drugs, costs and clinical benefits are not aligned
  • News

Cancer drugs, costs and clinical benefits are not aligned

  • 1 June 2020
  • Elena Riboldi
Cancer drugs, costs and clinical benefits are not aligned
Total
0
Shares
0
0
0
0
0

According to an international study just published in Lancet Oncology,  the cost of new cancer drugs is not associated to the clinical value of the therapy: “In the USA and European countries, prices of cancer drugs should be better aligned with their clinical importance, such as by prioritising drugs with low or uncertain benefit for price negotiations, to improve access to beneficial drugs and enable finite resources to be used for treatments that offer patients improved outcomes and optimal value” write Kerstin Noëlle Vokinger, professor for health law at the University of Zurich, and colleagues.

Vokinger’s group focused on 65 drugs approved in the last decade for the treatment of solid tumours or haematological malignancies. Monthly treatment costs for each drug were calculated separately for the USA and for four European countries (England, France, Germany, Switzerland). Cancer drug costs were more than double in the USA compared to Europe. This difference is mainly due to the fact that, by contrast with the USA, European countries have policies that allow national authorities to negotiate drug prices with manufacturers.

Strikingly, no significant associations between monthly drug treatment costs and clinical benefit was observed: for a given cancer type, a drug with lower clinical benefit score may have similar or even higher monthly costs compared to another drug with a higher score.

The clinical value of cancer therapies was evaluated using two frameworks developed by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO). The two tools have moderate concordance, although they were originally developed for different purposes: the ASCO Value Framework (ASCO-VF) was designed to help shared decision making on the most beneficial drug for an individual patient; the ESMO-Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale (ESMO-MCBS) was designed to identify cancer therapies that should be made rapidly available in every EU country. “In both the USA and in European countries, pricing for cancer drugs is complicated by the fact that many newly approved cancer drugs have weak or uncertain evidence about their clinical value, often because they are approved on the basis of surrogate endpoints” the author explain. Value frameworks can help identify therapies providing high clinical benefit and are useful tools for policy makers determined to to promote the affordability of new drugs.

Total
0
Shares
Share 0
Tweet 0
Share 0
Share 0
Share 0
Related Topics
  • ASCO
  • cancer drugs
  • ESMO
  • Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale
  • price
  • Value framework
Elena Riboldi

Previous Article
  • Voices

EORTC pushes for the State of Science in Care

  • 30 May 2020
  • Denis Lacombe
View Post
Next Article
  • Articles
  • Medicine

CCC-19 and TERAVOLT studies show strength and limits of research on cancer and COVID-19

  • 1 June 2020
  • Daniela Ovadia
View Post
You May Also Like
View Post
  • News

How a Brain-Destroying Protein Became Cancer’s Ally: Alpha-Synuclein Emerges as a New Target in Melanoma

  • Janet Fricker
  • 4 July 2025
View Post
  • News

CancerWorld #105 (July 2025)

  • Yeva Margaryan
  • 2 July 2025
View Post
  • News

How a Chicken Egg Model Could Transform Pediatric Cancer Treatment in Canada

  • Victoria Forster
  • 20 June 2025
View Post
  • News

Microbiota-Derived Bile Acids as Androgen Receptor Antagonists Enhance Anti-Tumour Immunity

  • Janet Fricker
  • 19 June 2025
View Post
  • Articles
  • News

Strategies Needed to Prioritise Screening in Survivors of Childhood Cancer

  • Janet Fricker
  • 4 June 2025
View Post
  • Articles
  • News

CancerWorld #104 (June 2025)

  • Yeva Margaryan
  • 2 June 2025
View Post
  • Articles
  • Medicine
  • News

Common Diabetes Medication Could Protect Heart Health During Cancer Treatment

  • Janet Fricker
  • 30 May 2025
View Post
  • Articles
  • News

CancerWorld issue #103 (May, 2025)

  • Yeva Margaryan
  • 11 May 2025
search
CancerWorld #105 Download CancerWorld #104 Download CancerWorld #103 Download CancerWorld #102 Download CancerWorld #101 Download or search in Cancerworld archive
Newsletter

Subscribe free to
Cancerworld!

We'll keep you informed of the latest features and news with a fortnightly email

Subscribe now
Latest News
  • How a Brain-Destroying Protein Became Cancer’s Ally: Alpha-Synuclein Emerges as a New Target in Melanoma
    • 4 July 2025
  • CancerWorld #105 (July 2025)
    • 2 July 2025
  • How a Chicken Egg Model Could Transform Pediatric Cancer Treatment in Canada
    • 20 June 2025
  • Microbiota-Derived Bile Acids as Androgen Receptor Antagonists Enhance Anti-Tumour Immunity
    • 19 June 2025
  • Strategies Needed to Prioritise Screening in Survivors of Childhood Cancer
    • 4 June 2025
Article
  • Suheir Rasul: Protecting Human Dignity
    • 4 July 2025
  • Equity:The Word That Shaped Her Career From The Lab To The White House:The Story Of Catharine Young
    • 4 July 2025
  • Curious, Rejected,Accepted: An ESO Fellow’s Road to Becoming an Oncologist
    • 3 July 2025
Social

Would you follow us ?

Contents
  • Suheir Rasul: Protecting Human Dignity
    • 4 July 2025
  • Equity:The Word That Shaped Her Career From The Lab To The White House:The Story Of Catharine Young
    • 4 July 2025
  • Curious, Rejected,Accepted: An ESO Fellow’s Road to Becoming an Oncologist
    • 3 July 2025
MENU
  • About the Magazine
    • About us
    • Editorial Team
    • Events
    • Archive
    • Contacts
  • Articles
    • Policy
    • Practice Points
    • Delivery of Care
    • Biology basic
    • Medicine
    • Featured
  • Contents
    • News
    • Editorials
    • Interviews to the Expert
    • In the Hot Seat
    • Profiles
    • Obituaries
    • Voices
  • ESO College Corner
Cancerworld Magazine
  • About us
  • Articles
  • Media Corner
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy

Cancerworld is published by OncoDaily (P53 Inc.) | Mailing Address: 867 Boylston st, 5th floor, Ste 1094 Boston, MA 02116, United States | [email protected]

Archivio Cancerworld

Input your search keywords and press Enter.