The Drug Pipeline Flows Again

For decades, victims of advanced melanoma had few treatment options. Most died within a year from the virulent skin cancer. Now a new generation of biotech treatments—targeting proteins that allow cancer to evade the body’s own defenses—is poised to change that. One new drug, Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Opdivo, boosted one-year survival rates in trials to 73 percent from 42 percent for standard chemotherapy.

There’s one problem with Opdivo: It costs $150,000 a year per patient. It and dozens of other cancer drugs are problematic for insurers and employers who are being asked to foot the bill. More than 30 cancer drugs that hit the market from 2010 to 2014 cost $5,000 a month or more, according to data from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Express Scripts, which administers prescription benefits for 85 million Americans, considers cancer treatment one of its cost control priorities.