$30,000 Cancer Drug ‘Low in Benefits’

James V. Caruso plans to begin marketing a drug named Folotyn in January for T-cell lymphoma, a rare and usually aggressive blood cancer for which he claims patients have “no options.”

A one month treatment using Folotyn costs: $30,000, according to the New York Times (NYT), which Caruso says is “fairly priced,” and “benchmarked” against other drugs marketed for cancer, which also run into the thousands.

However, according to NYT, “Critics, including many oncologists, say that patients and the health system cannot afford to pay huge prices for drugs that, on average, provide only a few extra months of life at best;” and Folytyn, according to the Times report, has not even been shown to prolong lives, only to shrink tumors.