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Chicago, IL—According to Leonard B. Saltz, MD, Chief of Gastrointestinal Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, NY, the cost of new cancer drugs is no longer sustainable. Dr Saltz presented “Perspectives on Value” at the Plenary Session of the 2015 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.

Chicago, IL—A transition from reimbursement based on volume to reimbursement based on value has begun to emerge, said speakers at the 2015 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in a session on payment reform. The transition will be clumsy, with competing and potentially mutually exclusive incentives.

Chicago, IL—The rising costs of cancer drugs and medical services, along with increased copays and high deductibles for patients, are adding a serious financial hardship to patients diagnosed with cancer, according to Neal J. Meropol, MD, Associate Director, Clinical Programs, University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH.

Chicago, IL—At the special session on value during the 2015 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, Jennifer Malin, MD, PhD, Staff Vice President for Clinical Strategy, Anthem, Thousand Oaks, CA, presented the payer perspective on value in cancer care. The role of the payer, Dr Malin said, is to balance different stakeholders’ values and needs at various time points.

Chicago, IL—The presidential keynote address at the 2015 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting was presented by Michael E. Porter, PhD, MBA, Bishop William Lawrence University Professor, Harvard Business School, Boston, who started the value discussions a decade ago. A strong proponent of changing the healthcare system to focus on value, Dr Porter suggests that the fundamental purpose of healthcare is to deliver great outcomes with increasing efficiency, but achieving this goal requires more holistic thinking about delivery care as science.

With all the focus in the media on cancer drug costs, let alone within the oncology community, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) has released its much-anticipated value framework.

Value versus cost is becoming an increasingly common question, particularly when evaluating new cancer drugs. The American Society of Clinical Oncology recently published its initial value framework to assist in assessing the value of new cancer therapies.

The high costs of specialty medications and the burden they place on individual patients and on the healthcare system overall are the media topics du jour. Cancer drugs are often cited as examples of unrestrained medication costs, so it is not surprising that the oncology community has responded by proposing alternative pricing models for cancer treatments based on the incremental value they provide.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) value framework and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC)’s DrugAbacus are 2 recent examples of an increasing trend of value-­based modeling to assess pharmaceuticals. Of particular interest, these methodologies represent some of the first efforts to incorporate a systematic approach to value specific to oncology. Xcenda, an AmerisourceBergen company, has previously reported on the increasing shift to value-based care with the Department of Health & Human Services and select large US payers.¹ Outside of the United States, single-payer systems in Europe have taken an even more aggressive approach to value-based models, going as far as to quantify the value of human life, and then to measure the use of a drug versus its ability to prolong life in a demonstrable way.

The relative value of cancer care has become the major debate in oncology over the past few years. The rising costs of treatment, along with increasing out-of-pocket costs for patients, have sparked a debate about what is “reasonable” treatment for all involved. As a nonprofit patient assistance foundation, Patient Services provides financial assistance to patients who have great challenges in accessing their treatments because of the high costs. Of note, most of those who receive assistance from our foundation are insured.