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Earlier this week, Big Pharma was accused of profiteering from cancer due to the ‘rip-off’ prices of potentially life-saving treatments. Lucy Brake examines the charges and asks, is this a fair and reasonable accusation?

By Lucy Brake on May 1, 2013

The Independent ran an extended story on Monday, covering an earlier story published in the journal, Blood, which accuses Big Pharma of “condemning patients to death” due to unrealistically high prices.

The story detailed how a group of more than 100 leading cancer physicians from around the world, including nine from the UK, and accused the drug industry of “profiteering” – making a profit by unethical methods.

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) swiftly responded claiming that the pharmaceutical industry continues to create medicines which transform and save the lives of people across the world.

“The profits companies make in the UK are capped by Government under the current pharmaceutical pricing scheme”, ABPI said in a press release. “Medicine prices in the UK are already amongst the lowest in Europe, and the proportion of the NHS budget spent on new medicines is set to fall, not rise, in real terms over the coming years”.

One statistic quoted in the article is that of the 12 drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2012, 11 were priced above $100,000 (£65,000) per patient per year and the cost of current medicines of proven effectiveness has been increased by nearly three times. In addition, it is noted that the rising cost of existing drugs in a “cash limited health service such as the NHS means treatment is denied to other patients with other conditions”.

The Independentcited the article published in the journal, whose authors are experts in blood cancers such as leukaemia, where cancer drugs have proved most effective.

The authors of the original article conclude: “We believe the unsustainable drug prices may be causing harm to patients. Advocating for lower drug prices is a necessity to save the lives of patients who cannot afford them. We believe drug prices should reflect objective measures of benefit, but should not exceed values that harm our patients and societies”.

The pharma giant Novartis was targeted in the story and in a statement to The Independent the company said: “Over the years, our programs have evolved to improve patient access to our medicines. We work together with government health care systems, charities and other payers to build successful cost-sharing models.”

The ABPI noted that pharmaceutical companies can only create medicines if the £1.15bn research and development cost of bringing a new product to market can be recovered by the profits generated during the period of patent protection. “When a company sells its medicine, it also needs to take into account the highly risky development process. Just one in every 5,000 molecules screened ever becomes a treatment and of those medicines that reach the market just one in five actually go on to recoup its costs”.

So whilst the article in The Independent and the authors of the article are scathing about some cancer drug pricing, the age-old argument of R&D costs could possibly have been overlooked. Do you think cancer drugs are priced artificially high? What would your solution be for the rising costs of R&D? Let us know in the comments below.