Drawing The Line On Overpriced Cancer Drugs - Robert Langreth - Treatments - Forbes

Drawing The Line On Overpriced Cancer Drugs - Robert Langreth - Treatments - Forbes: "“We have trained our biotech and pharmaceutical companies to aim low and rewarded them for doing that.” If a company can sell a me-too drug that extends survival by 3 weeks for $100,000 a year, as it can today, why bother doing something more risky that could result in a cure?

Saltz says that a gentler American version of NICE–one with a little less top-down bureaucracy and a little more input from doctors and patients–might be the only way to get soaring cancer drug costs under control. “We need the equivalent of NICE,” he says. “Pretending that we can afford not to do it is an expensive mistake.”