Welcome back to the Plenary Session podcast. This is the podcast at the intersection of medicine,

oncology, and health policy. I'm your host, Vinay Prasad. Today we're going to be listening to a lecture

I gave recently to an elective class I teach. This is on the cost of cancer drugs. I go through

some of the data on the crushing and unsustainable price of these drugs, although they've been

some recent modifications, the cost just keeps climbing. It's nowhere under control. And as far as I can

tell, that's not going to change anytime soon. But this lecture, I think, will give you some

perspective why this is so important. still remains a vital issue. I encourage

you if you like this to read the book Malignant. There's just a whole lot more in there. Stay tuned.

All right. This is labeled lecture five, but it's actually lecture four. So thanks for coming.

This is on the cost of cancer drugs. Maybe we could talk more broadly about drug cost. This is the fourth and final lecture in this little elective we've been doing here for the medical students. Thanks for coming, either virtually or in person. All right. Well, you know, the obligatory slide to show you in the beginning of any talk on cancer drug price is that the cost per year of treatment is climbing precipitously faster than other classes of medications.

The average launch price of a new cancer drug has changed dramatically.

You can see that on the right.

In 1975 to 79, a new cancer drug launching would be priced at $129 per month of therapy.

But by 2000 to 2004, it's $4,700.

And at 2005 to 2009, it's $7,000.

We pass $10,000.

We're at $15,000 to $20,000 currently.

I think 1999 was a seminal year. It was the year taxol was

approved, which was the first Blockbuster cancer drug. By Blockbuster, I mean it had sales in excess of a

billion dollars. Previously, it was thought you could only have sales in excess of a billion

if you were something for a very common condition like cholesterol or heartburn. But finally,

a cancer drug achieved those sales,

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