Leading scientists at both institutions have called for the price of cancer drugs to be lowered substantially in order to keep lifesaving drugs available and affordable to patients.
Professor Paul Workman, chief executive of the ICR, has said that despite the amazing work which scientists are doing to lead to advances in treatment, "[a]ll this invention is meaningless if patients cannot afford these drugs. It is unsustainable. For those of us involved in research, it is disturbing that the amount of research that goes on and the success that is made is not translated into treatment for patients. And for patients it is a terrible situation."
Arguments from the pharmaceutical companies that large, expensive clinical trials required to gain regulatory approval for the cancer drugs pushes up the end price of the drug, have been challenged by the ICR and Anderson Cancer Center in the paper. Instead, they claim that the use of genetic biomarker testing has led to more targeted clinical trial participant selection, meaning fewer patients are required, which enables clinical trials to be smaller and more cost effective.
The ICR and Anderson Cancer Center suggest that institutions like theirs should look at building relationships with new commercial partners outside of Big Pharma, such as biotech companies, in order to try to bring drugs to market which have a price cap - shifting the focus from big profit margins to more affordable cancer drugs. Workman ends with a call to action for "a more mature and open conversation about how this could be done and offering a solution".
Laura Barrell, a solicitor at VWV, comments that, "These great Institutions undertake cutting edge science with a simple and pure purpose - to help patients. Despite the heavy loss of many drug developments at an early stage, scientists never tire and, in the face of great adversity, manage to provide us with new, life-saving or extending drugs of which we can be proud. It is with great sadness that we see these ventures fall at the last hurdle and not actually make it to patients because of cost and policy. Whilst we need to respect the importance of monetary worth and continued investment in drug development, we should not be seeing patients die in order to keep profit margins bulging. I therefore deeply respect the call to action by these leading Institutes and hope to see the patient put first once again."