Live webcast, Oct. 23, 12:30-1:30 p.m. ET | Watch at ForumHSPH.org
A full course of treatment with the blockbuster Hepatitis C drug Sovaldi costs $84,000 in the United States. A year on the new injectable cholesterol drugs Repatha and Praluent tops $14,000. The price of new cancer drugs now averages $10,000 per month, according to one estimate.
Straining under the pressure, doctors, patients, and insurers are raising alarms over skyrocketing prices. Earlier this year, the American Society of Clinical Oncology released a new “value framework” for drugs that considers health benefit and price to help guide doctor-patient conversations around treatment options.
For their part, pharmaceutical companies and some economists argue that the high cost of drug development justifies the price.
This Forum will explore the factors driving the high cost of new drugs. What policy changes, from the drug approval process to patent law, could change the equation? Are some of these drugs worth the cost? And what can be done to make sure that patients can afford the medications that they need?
Participants
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Steven Pearson, President of the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review and Lecturer at Harvard Medical School
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Aaron Kesselheim, Director, Program on Regulation, Therapeutics, and Law, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
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Meredith Rosenthal, Professor of Health Economics and Policy, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
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Lowell Schnipper, Clinical Director, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Cancer Center, and Chair, American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Value in Cancer Care Task Force
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Moderator : Caroline Humer, Correspondent, Reuters
Send our panelists questions in advance to theforum@hsph.harvard.edu. The Forum will accommodate as many questions as we can during a limited Q&A.
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Contact: Marge Dwyer: 617-432-8416, mhdwyer@hsph.harvard.edu
The Dr. Lawrence H. and Roberta Cohn Forums at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, presented in Collaboration with Reuters and in Association with Harvard Health Publications