Pharmaceutical companies are earning extra profits thanks to the way cancer drugs are wasted, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). Lead researcher Peter B. Bach found that the Food and Drug Administration and cancer drug manufacturers were “robbing the people of their health and their wealth” by producing single-dose vials in quantities that generated drug waste. Insurance companies, the government, and patients are left to foot the bill, which amounts to billions of dollars.
Increased waste with infused drugs
Bach explains that reducing waste in healthcare is a primary concern, but many experts have failed to notice waste created by expensive infused medications packaged in quantities exceeding those needed. This is especially true for drugs that are based on a patient’s weight or body size and come in single-dose packages. As there’s no way every patient’s body size will perfectly match the amount of drug in each vial, leftover quantities are inevitable.
What’s astonishing is that despite the fact that these drugs are very costly, once they’re opened, they cannot be stored for later use. Instead, the remaining medication is discarded — and still must be paid for. As a result, the drug companies can increase the amount of drug sold per patient by increasing the amount in each single-dose vial relative to the required dose.
Wasted drugs and high costs
Safety standards put forth by the US Pharmacopeial Convention dictate that a drug may be administered to other patients, but only within six hours of opening. Therefore, most leftover medications are wasted. Bach cited a particularly shocking example of this waste in which the myeloma drug bortezomib (Velcade) is available in a 3.5 mg vial, yet the typical patient dose is only 2.2 mg. The cost of the drug’s wasted leftovers is estimated to be $308.7 million. Another myeloma drug, carfilzomib (Kyprolis), is sold in a 60 mg vial, but the patient’s usual dose is only 34 mg, with the wasted portion amounting to around $231.4 million in unnecessary costs.
However, pharmaceutical companies can produce these drugs in different-sized vials to reduce waste if desired. The leukemia medication Treanda, manufactured by Teva Pharmaceuticals, comes in packages sized 25, 45, 100, and 180 milligrams — a strategy that more closely aligns with the drug’s administration, with only around 1% of the drug wasted.
Sophisticated advertising and deception
Bach argues that it’s hard to believe pharma companies aren’t aware of this waste and asserts that they are extremely sophisticated businesses with advanced knowledge of the patients using their medications. “Patent medicines are one of the greatest deceptions of our time. They are products of advertising — very sophisticated and expensive advertising,” he claims.
Furthermore, patent medicines seem to benefit the companies more than the patients. They function as palliatives that suppress symptoms, rather than truly cure or enhance the immune system. In fact, chemotherapy drugs have previously been found to exacerbate cancer.
Many researchers argue that cancer and other diseases can be managed more effectively by consuming wholesome foods free of chemicals, genetically modified organisms, antibiotics, and growth hormones, rather than spending billions on exorbitantly priced drugs and therapies.
