Controlling the cost of innovative cancer therapeutics.

The cost of monoclonal antibody therapies for cancer is soaring out of control. Healthcare payers and patients are increasingly struggling to meet the high costs, which can be up to US$100,000 a year. A number of methods have been proposed to control these costs-government price controls on cancer drugs, biosimilars and novel drug pricing strategies. This article discusses what the impact of these strategies would be in terms of their ability to reduce costs and their effect on innovative cancer drug discovery.