Medicare will pay for costly leukemia treatment.
New treatment for leukemia costs $178,000
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has decided that Medicare will pay for one of the newest, most expensive cancer medications, which costs about $178,000 for a standard course of treatment.
Patients, doctors, hospital executives and insurers have expressed concern about the high cost of prescription drugs, especially new cancer medicines and treatments tailored to the genetic characteristics of individual patients.
Medicare officials recognized the cost and value of one such product, the anti-cancer drug Blincyto, by agreeing to make additional payments for it starting Oct. 1. The drug is made by Amgen for patients with a particularly aggressive form of leukemia. Significant reversal
The decision suggests a new willingness by Medicare to help pay for promising therapies that are still being evaluated. It is also significant because Medicare officials reversed themselves on every major scientific issue involved. After receiving pleas from Amgen and a dossier of scientific evidence, the officials agreed that the drug was a substantial improvement over existing treatments for some patients.
At issue are special “add-on payments” that Medicare makes to hospitals for new technology whose costs are not yet re- flected in the standard lump-sum amounts that hospitals receive for treating patients with a particular disease or disorder.
In a preliminary decision in April, the Obama administration said it did not intend to pay extra for Blincyto because clinical studies were “not sufficient to demonstrate” that it substantially improved the treatment of Medicare patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Medicare officials said Amgen’s application was based on data from “a small sample group of patients whose age demographic is much younger than the age demographic of eligible Medicare beneficiaries.”
But in a final rule to be published on Aug. 17, the administration says it received “additional information and input” from Amgen and other experts and now agrees with their arguments. ‘Amazing’ outcome
Blincyto “is not substantially similar” to other drugs available to leukemia patients, the administration said, and it “represents a substantial clinical improvement over existing treatment options.”
Jane Wirth, 59, of Reno, Nev., a former preschool teacher, said her cancer was in remission after 28 days with Blincyto, also known as blinatumomab.
“It was amazing to me that it could work so well so quickly,” Wirth said. “I had just spent a month going through standard chemotherapy, which did not make the cancer go away. It seemed so hopeless.”
The drug, engineered from two antibodies, harnesses the body’s immune system to help fight cancer. It brings certain white blood cells close to malignant cells so the blood cells can destroy the cancer cells.
Dr. Anthony Stein, a researcher at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, Calif., who has treated more than 50 patients in clinical trials of Blincyto, said, “Its mechanism of action is totally different from that of any other approved drug.”
After the Food and Drug Administration approved Blincyto in December, Amgen said the price would be about $178,000 for the recommended two 28-day cycles of treatment, each followed by a two-week break. Medicare says it will now allow a “new technology add-on payment” to hospitals for a fraction of that amount, up to $27,000. Actual payments will vary based on the length of a patient’s hospital stays.