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A weekly blog based on PodMed, Johns Hopkins podcast looking at the top medical stories of the week for people who want to become informed participants in their own health care.
Previous post: Avoiding Vaccination
Next post: Should Doctors Assist in Death?
This blog gives additional details on one of multiple topics in PodMed, a weekly podcast found at Hopkinsmedicine.org/ podmed. It looks at the top medical stories of the week for people who want to become informed participants in their own health care.
PodMed is created by Elizabeth Tracey, director of electronic media for Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Rick Lange M.D., professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins, president of the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center and dean of the Paul Foster School of Medicine.
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Drug Costs
September 18th, 2017|Medical News Commentary|By Elizabeth Tracey
This study took a look at 10 new cancer drugs from 10 companies, using data provided to the US Securities and Exchange Commission to pinpoint research and development (R&D) costs by the pharmaceutical companies. The authors found that the median time to develop a new drug was 7.3 years at a cost of $648 million. Here's what the drug makers earned:"The revenue since approval is substantial (median, $1658.4 million; range, $204.1 million to $22 275.0 million). Taken in aggregate, profits in about 4 years post approval were about 9 times the costs of bringing the drug to market. One element included in the data pharma provides to the SEC is that research undertaken with public dollars in research grants to universities, a cost that should clearly be removed. And finally, these numbers are very different from those provided by pharma to justify huge price tags on new drugs relative to R&D. As Rick and I agree, profit is fine, gouging is not. In view of the fact that most people with cancer cite financial concerns as a major source of worry, some scrutiny and modification of this practice seems indicated. It's also worth noting that such price gouging is not limited to cancer drugs, and is something that cries out for redress.
Other topics this week include two from JAMA:Effect of Sentinel Lymph Node vs Full Axillary Dissection on Overall Breast Cancer Survival and Menopausal Hormone Therapy and Long-term All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality, and in NEJM: Hospital-Readmission Risk — Isolating Hospital Effects from Patient Effects. Until next week, y'all live well.