Interesting Bit on CAR-T vs Chemo Costs
Found it interesting because Chemo cost is 200k that surprised me. Also CAR-T at 30% not cost effective. But at 40% is. Gee we have something that might help with that. Cheers!--------------------------------------- Dr. Lin:I agree that we should reward therapies that make the biggest difference for our patients. CAR T-cell therapy has resulted in substantial gains for patients in a way that other cancer therapies have not. To your point, one of the flaws in the American health care system is that we pay more than $200,000 per year for non-curative oral chemotherapies but struggle to pay for CAR T cells. Nevertheless, how should we define what price is reasonable for a curative therapy? We have to weigh the outcomes and costs of a therapy simultaneously, and this is the goal of cost-effectiveness analyses. Our analysis showed that CAR T-cell therapies are priced somewhere between intermediate and low value; its ultimate cost-effectiveness depends heavily on cure rate. If 40% of patients are cured with CAR T-cell therapy, it will probably be cost-effective (at a willingness to pay threshold of $150,000 per quality adjusted life year). However, if the cure rate is closer to 30%, it is unlikely to be cost-effective at current prices. Until we have long-term data, I think the jury is still out on whether CAR T-cell therapy is cost-effective.