Biotech Values

[iwfal]

this has little to do with the problem addressed by the editorial: $100,000+ prices for cancer drugs that extend life very modestly.

BTW - that editorial had yet other problems. For instance the claim that 'only three were found to improve survival' may be true - but it is undoubtedly very misleading. For instance the CLL drug Bosutinib was probably not included in that list of 3 - because it was approved based upon Major Cytogenic Response. But it almost certainly does improve survival - it just isn't yet 'proven'. Similarly another of the 2012 Onc approvals was for Jakafi for Myelofibrosis. Maybe it improves survival, maybe not - but that wasn't the basis of approval (obviously - since myelofibrosis isn't immanently fatal). Instead the basis was, essentially, QoL. A worthy goal. So the editorial writers were, to a significant degree, using misleading statistics.

BTW 2 - I'd love to see QALY as a universal judgement tool for re-imbursement. But I'd equally like to see MD specialist salaries significantly reined in - so I find such editorials very self-serving and un-self-aware.