Articles

Washington, DC—Three million dollars to toss a life ring? That’s what the pharmaceutical industry would charge, the director of Medical Ethics at Harvard’s School of Medicine suggested at the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), held April 17-21 in Washington, DC.

Brussels—A retrospective study of patients with metastatic breast cancer shows that the number of circulating tumor cells in the patient’s bloodstream prognosticates the length of their survival, information that can be used to adjust treatment at the end of life.

Brussels—A simple genetic test using only 3 genes is among the most effective means of classifying breast cancer into the subtypes that indicate pa tients’ different prognoses and response or resistance to cancer therapies, say researchers, and this finding could allow greater use of personalized treatments in breast cancer.

Brussels—Researchers attempting to understand why some women with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)–positive breast cancer do not respond to drugs designed to target this molecule have found that inhibiting the PI3K/AKT molecular pathway instead may offer greater therapeutic benefit for this group. The findings were presented at the IMPAKT [Improving Care and Knowledge Through Translational Research] Breast Cancer Conference, held May 5-8.

San Diego—In the first study to estimate the budgetary impact of accepting pemetrexed as maintenance therapy for non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), researchers found that adopting the drug did not significantly affect a health plan’s budget.

San Diego—Pharmacogenomic (PGx) testing seeks to optimize treatment by ensuring patients receive the bestsuited drug based on interindividual genetic variation. Currently, no published data exist on how this may influence the appropriateness of oncology treatment within a utilization management program. Seeking to remedy this, researchers from CVS Caremark (Northbrook, IL) analyzed data from their own utilization management program, within which PGx testing requirements are implemented for certain oncology therapies and specific indications.

San Diego—Payers believe that prescribing information, national guidelines, and prospective controlled randomized trials (PCRTs) are the most useful sources of information about oncology drugs, according to researchers from Genentech, Inc (South San Francisco).

San Diego—For health plans attempting to cut costs, instituting higher out-of-pocket (OOP) payments for patients taking oral oncology drugs may not be a prudent solution, according to research presented at the AMCP’s annual meeting.

Presenting the findings at the annual meeting of the AMCP, lead researcher Shetal Desai, PharmD, discussed how NCH decreased the number of disputed claims and recovered more than $1 million in drug replacement from manufacturer patient-assistance programs across 18 months after bringing a managed care pharmacist on board.

San Diego—Despite increasing interest in cost-effectiveness (CE) research, the groups conducting these analyses continue to use models that are very different from each other, hampering a more precise understanding of drug comparability.