Doctors Outraged Over Cancer Drugs Cost; More Than 100 Experts Release Letter Calling End To Sky-High Prices

With high prices for some cancer medicines reaching upwards of $100,000 per year or more, a consortium of doctors have signed a letter in protest, saying the cost is too high and that pharmaceutical companies must work to make the life-saving drugs more affordable.

The group of doctors, more than 100 experts in leukemia, released the signed editorial letter in the medical journal Blood on Thursday, and called for an end to skyrocketing prices for drugs that treat chronic myelogenous leukemia. Specifically, they pointed out the prices of three new leukemia drugs, which they say have been priced at "astronomical levels." They include drugs that cost between $118,000 to $138,000 per year.

In calling for lower drug costs, the doctors invoked the doctrine of Justum Pretium, or just price, which refers to the "fair value" of these life-saving commodities. "In deciding the relationship between price and worth (or value), it advocates that, by moral necessity, price must reflect worth. This doctrine may be different from the doctrine of free market economies where prices reflect 'what the market bears', or what one is willing to pay for a product," they wrote in the letter. "One could argue that when a commodity affects the lives or health of individuals, just price should prevail because of the moral implications."

The doctors argued that drug prices are too high, not only in the United States, which represent "the extreme end of high prices" but other parts of the world. For example, even at the more modest pricing in developing nations, only a minority of patients can afford the drugs, the editorial said, leading sometimes to doctors having to advocate bone-marrow transplants, because at an average of $30,000 to $80,000 U.S. dollars, the riskier one-time procedure is seen as more advantageous than embarking on a long-term regimen of cancer drugs.

According to the New York Times, support for pressuring pharmaceutical companies to lower prices is probably broader than the 130 or so doctors that signed the letter, as some doctors didn't sign the protest letter because they were worried about losing research money from the pharmaceutical industry. One Dr. John M. Goldman stated, "I am sure I am going to be blackballed," but that "pharmaceutical companies have lost their moral sense."