Cancer drug costs and desperation: a reality for Americans
This blog post concerns real people who are desperate, angry, and facing terminal illness because of the cost of a cancer medication. A woman named Lisa recently placed a comment on a blog post we wrote back in March 2013 called “The Price of Gleevec: A Tale of Two Supreme Courts.” We noted at the time that the Indian Supreme Court told drug company Novartis to go fly a kite in its effort to stop lower cost generic versions of Gleevec, a cancer medication, from being sold in India, and that the U.S. Supreme Court was hearing arguments against a practice known as Pay-to-Delay involving a different medication.
But this post is not about policies and intellectual property or patent rights, the rightness or wrongness of India’s looser patent laws, pay-to-delay, personal drug importation or online pharmacies. It’s just about a woman’s husband and others who have cancer and can’t afford the medicine they need to get better or live.
Lisa gave me permission to re-publish her comment as a blog post here. I have made very, very slight edits, as you can see if you look at the original comment.
Lisa wrote:
This is very interesting news and gives us a little hope. My husband has Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML). He has been on Gleevec (here in So. California for the past 12 years. I thought I should mention Gleevec here in the U.S. is $10,600.00 a month for 400mg (30 pills). I thought should mention this because your prices listed here in the U.S. are inaccurate. That would bring the total cost to $126,000 a year.
We are going broke, will probably lose our home and my husband will probably never be able to retire (even though his body is breaking down from 40+ years of a very physical job as a pipe fitter. I (the wife), am permanently disabled. We will die homeless before this drug ever comes within an affordable price.
Many children and adults are cutting their pills in half, which defects the purpose. They too, will die before seeing Gleevec reach an affordable price here in the U.S.
All the countries you listed in the article, do NOT accept U.S. insurance companies and/or ObamaCare.
Why doesn’t anyone bring this to the press? Why does Congress and ObamaCare turn a blind eye? How many hundreds have to die before this drug and options are researched. I have written many letters to Norvartis, only to be ignored. I have written to Media Outlets only to be ignored. Now I am desperately asking for your help in bringing this to the media and anyone that will listen. We and many others are scared out of our minds. We are really loosing hope and it is tearing families apart. Some patients are becoming suicidal, because they don’t know how they are going to afford the next month supply of Gleevec. Novartis (GREEDARTIS) should be ashamed of themselves. You should research the substantial increases (quarterly), since the drug first went on the market. It will blow you mind! What if this was your child or loved one?
