In the war against cancer, Pharma is betting on new blockbuster cancer drugs that cost billions to develop and can be sold for thousands of dollars a dose. Left behind are low-cost alternatives — often existing off-label medications, including generics — that have shown some merit but don’t have enough profit potential for drug companies to invest in researching their anti-cancer properties.
Cancer is growing fastest in the developing world. The new blockbuster drugs will not be affordable for low-income countries and because the United States leads the world in drug trials, lower cost alternatives are not being properly investigated. This is not the fault of pharmaceutical companies, which exist to make a profit and cannot be expected to cover many important areas of research that go unexplored. But public funding for drug development is on the decline. When the National Cancer Institute funds trials, it prefers to partner with companies or academic institutions that are pursuing new drugs rather than exploring the repurposing of existing ones. It also does not focus funding on costlier late-stage human trials known as phase III.
The story underscores that the biggest challenge to combatting cancer may not be getting the science right but creating a business model that makes sense.