Pages

Sunday, April 28, 2013

The death sentence for being poor

Regular visitors to the SOYMB blog will be well aware that it has often posted about the pharmaceutical industry, exposing Big Pharm’s drive to accumulate returns rather than save lives. We are now joined by a group of more than 100 leading cancer physicians from around the world, including nine from the UK, who accuse the drug industry of “profiteering” – making a profit by unethical methods and effectively condemning patients to death.


Of the 12 drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the US in 2012, 11 were priced above $100,000 (£65,000) per patient per year. In addition the price of existing drugs of proven effectiveness has been increased by up to threefold.

Imatinib, brand name is Glivec, has proved so successful in chronic myeloid leukaemia that patients who a decade ago survived for a few years can now look forward to a near-normal life expectancy. But the cost of Glivec has risen from £18,000 per patient per year to around £21,000 in the UK, and from $30,000 to $92,000 in the US. This is despite the fact that all research costs were covered by the original price, and the number of patients treated and the length of time they are on the drug have both vastly increased because of the drug’s success. Daniel Vasella, former chairman and chief executive of Novartis, the manufacturer, said the original price charged for Glivec in 2001 was considered “high but worthwhile” and was estimated to yield annual revenues of $900 million, enough to cover its development cost in two years. A decade later Its annual revenues in 2012 were $4.7 billion (£3 billion).

Professor Jane Apperley, chair of the Department of Haematology at Imperial College said high drug prices were a cause of harm in Britain.
“The price of a drug heavily influences the decision of NICE whether we can prescribe it on the NHS... The drugs are very effective at keeping people alive. But if they are priced out of what you can afford you know that you can keep people alive but you can’t afford to do so.”

Sorafenib tosylate is a drug for liver cancer patented by German pharmaceutical company Bayer and marketed as Nexavar. Bayer priced the drug at nearly £3,500 per month which drug regulators say is "simply too high" to justify making it available on the NHS. Until March last year, India - a country where half the population live on less than £1 per day - had no choice but to pay this sum for patented Nexavar. But to ensure affordable access, the country has since granted a compulsory licence clause that cuts the cost of the drug by allowing another company to manufacture the therapy, even though it is still under patent. This has slashed the price of the drug by an astounding 97% - generic versions of sorafenib in India cost around £84 per month. Bayer has refused to provide details on how much it invested in Nexavar's research and development, the cost of which was partly subsidised by the US government. The only figure Bayer was prepared to refer to was the $1 billion general R&D price tag that GSK Chief Andrew Witty recently called "one of the great myths of the industry".

The solution although is not cheaper priced medication but the end of prices and the introduction of production for need, and not for profit.

No comments:

Post a Comment