Segment 3: How Payers are assessing the Value of New Agents

Dr. Chernew asks the panelists how payers address the value of these costly combination therapies when there are less expensive options available. Dr. Newcomer says that the drugs being discussed are, in fact, having a significant clinical effect. The combination impacts survival and how long the tumor stays away, which is a real value.

Dr. Chernew asks how payers and financing will impede the access to patients who might benefit from the new agents and Dr. Swain replies, “ I think it will affect them greatly, because what we are already seeing is the patients are coming to hospital settings, who are on Medicare and are not being treated in their doctor’s office and their infusion center because the doctors can’t afford to do it, they actually lose money, so they are coming to a higher price facility, a hospital, to get their infusion. So I think it is really going to affect, not on the patients but the economy in general.”