Restrictions by health insurers and government to control expenses may hurt the malignant melanoma drug market

May 12 2004

Decision Resources, Inc., a research and advisory firms focusing on pharmaceutical and health care issues, finds that restrictions by health insurers and government health authorities to control expenses may hurt the malignant melanoma drug market.

According to the new Pharmacor study entitled Malignant Melanoma, concern over spiraling costs of expensive biological therapies that provide only modest gains in overall survival leave physicians at odds about their therapeutic value. "Current medical practice exhibits two schools of thought: clinicians who consider systemic biotherapy to be cost-effective and those who are not convinced because of the marginal improvement in disease-free survival that such therapy achieves," said Joanne Graham, Ph.D., analyst Decision Resources.

The study also finds that Celgene's Revimid will provide an effective, well-tolerated alternative to the cocktail of chemotherapy agents currently used as second-line treatment for patients with stage IV disease and will achieve sales of $62 million in 2013.