Nation's Cancer Drug Shortage

[Guest guest]

Comment: I wasn't aware that companies manufacturing off-patent/generic

drugs where subject to price controls .. I assumed that price is determined

by supply, demand, and competition?

Maybe a public option is needed to address this life-and-death crisis . that

is deficit neutral of course : )

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Oncologists Say Generic-Manufacture Incentives Could Alleviate Nation's

Cancer Drug Shortage.

Reuters (6/8, Sherman, Steenhuysen) reports that leading oncologists who

attended the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting warned that a

primary issue behind the cancer medication shortage is a lack of incentives

to encourage pharmaceutical companies to manufacture generics drugs, which

have a substantively lower profit yield.

Dr. Mayer from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, who is a

previous ASCO president, said mainstay generic chemotherapies, such as

cisplatin, doxorubicin, cytarabine and leucovorin, are running particularly

short at US hospitals.

Reuters quotes Dr. Mayer as saying the aforementioned drugs are " not

old-fashioned. ... They remain incredibly important drugs, which serve as

the backbone for treating many of the most common and treatable cancers, "

including bladder, lung, ovarian, testicular, and other cancers that have

advanced.

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All the best,

Karl

Patients Against Lymphoma

www.Lymphomation.org