Can Medicare afford to pay for oral chemotherapy drugs? : an evaluation of the problem and introduction of a model to estimate cost

Recently, effective oral cancer drugs are gaining prominence. This trend toward oral chemotherapy has important economic implications: the Medicare system of the United States pays for all intravenous (IV) chemotherapy, but it covers only those oral drugs that have an equivalent IV formulation approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The majority of oral cancer drugs in the cancer pipeline do not have such an IV equivalent. There are two proposals before the United States Congress to expand the Medicare program to cover all oral cancer drugs. Gefitinib (Iressa; AstraZeneca) is one of the most interesting of the cohort of novel, targeted oral cancer drugs. Already approved in Japan, it is currently under review by the U.S. FDA. This drug has relatively modest efficacy and few side effects; but it is likely to be expensive. Because the sponsor is seeking approval for the treatment of lung cancer, with a large annual incidence, the economic implications of an FDA approval for gefitinib have raised considerable concern.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Sociology

Year dc:date.issued

2003

Author dc:creator

• Roberts, Thomas Gerald

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/5959

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/5959