A useful cancer drug, where cost is prohibitive:
Doctors are excited about the prospect of Avastin, a drug already widely used for colon cancer, as a crucial new treatment for breast and lung cancer, too. But doctors are cringing at the price the maker, Genentech, plans to charge for it: about $100,000 a year.
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That doesn’t surprise me they charge me nearly $24,000 a year for my hormone replacement.
I’m not a medical oncologist.
Here’s some data.
Dosage for Avastin for metastatic colorectal cancer is 5 mg/kg q14 days “until disease progression is detected,” implyng that Avastin is given every two weeks without an end point. Probably because the patient has metastatic or stage 4 disease.
For a 165 lb. or 75 kg. patient this works out to 375 mg every 2 weeks or 9,750 mg/year.
Avastin is packaged in 100 mg vials so this 75 kg. patient would require 98 vials per year.
The quoted RETAIL price of 98 vials of Avastin at Drugstore.com is $60,638.
I would assume that Genentech would sell Avastin for a lesser wholesale price.
So by my calculations, the price of a year of Avastin for metastatic colorectal cancer should be less than half the price in this news story.
Maybe there’s a different dosage for the off-label use for breast cancer.
Please correct me if my information is incorrect.
The dose used for breast and lung cancer is double the dose used for colon cancer.