Thursday, April 26, 2018

The Million Dollar Cancer Treatment: Who Will Pay?


So far, few patients have received the new drugs, as commercial health plans and Medicare wrestle with how to cover the treatment

By Jonathan D. Rockoff
April 26, 2018 7:00 a.m. ET
The emergence of genetics-based medicines is pushing the cost of treating certain diseases to new levels, forcing hospitals and health insurers to reckon with how to cover total costs per patient approaching a million dollars.
The therapies deliver new genes or genetically altered cells to tackle some of the hardest-to-treat diseases, including in children. They come at a high price: Novartis AG listed its newly approved cell therapy for cancer at $475,000, while Gilead Sciences Inc. priced its rival drug at $373,000.

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