Value in cancer drug spending: assessing the clinical risks and benefits from a decade’s worth of innovation

There are growing questions about the value from spending on what seem like ever-more expensive cancer medicines. Rising expenditures may make it difficult for patients to access or remain compliant with life-extending therapies. Yet, some have argued that high prices may be justified if new and innovative treatments offer significant clinical benefits. Even as studies point to gains in overall survival from innovative cancer medicines, efforts to examine the value from related expenditures remain stymied by a dearth of systematic evidence on their clinical risks and benefits. This lack of evidence makes it difficult to demand more from innovation, and, where costs factor into the decision-making process, for clinicians and patients to balance preferences for the expected impact from treatment against rising drug costs.