What The Public Says About Medicare & Provenge
7 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // July 2nd, 2010 // 10:38 am
The decision by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to review Dendreon’s Provenge prostate cancer vaccine caused investors to dump the stock in after-hours trading Wednesday night. Most analysts believe CMS will ultimately decide in favor of providing coverage, but initiated its review because Provenge is a novel treatment. Cost is not supposed to be a determinant, although the $93,000 price tag is an eye opener (back story here and here). Investors, however, are not the only ones who are upset. CMS is encouraging public comment and, not surprisingly, many patient remarks have already been filed. Whether some comments were made by stealth investors or insiders can be debated if you wish. Nonetheless, here is a smattering…
“I am amazed that your agency will take a full year to approve the payment of a treatment that has no side effects and is significantly better than chemo. Why is every agency out to hamper or short circuit Provenge? You have no issue paying out more than 100k for chemo and related medicines but the 93k for Provenge is a potential iissue?” Spock Capone
“Your announcement muddles the current understanding among patients and physicians about your intention to reimburse in accordance with the currently approved clinical label for Provenge. You have left the general public with the impression that Medicare may in fact not reimburse Provenge in patients who are asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic i.e. its approved FDA label. If you intend to reimburse Provenge in the population covered by its FDA-approved label, then please clarify this with the American public. If you intend to simply clarify the criteria which defines a patient as asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic and to clearly define a policy with regards to off-label use, then please clarify this to the medical and patient community. Leaving patients and physicians confused about the purpose of the NCD does a great disservice.” Jim Doherty
“I dare say that if this drug was for Breast Cancer, we wouldn’t be having this comment period at all.” Charles Donges
“If one of you people at CMS would just sit down with pencil, a piece of paper and a calculator and start adding up all the related costs associated with treating a prostate cancer patient with chemo poison (cost of the drug, cost of the other drugs to suppress the symptoms of the first drug, emergency hospital stays and transportation costs, cost of the deaths associated with Taxotere - it kills about 2% of those brave men that dare to take it, yes sir,it does! etc. etc.), you will see that Provenge is the much more cost effective medication.” Melvin Flores
“Considering all the research, clinical studies, approval by private insurors, etc., a time frame of roughly a year appears to be unreasonable to go through the process of setting guidelines for a breakthrough drug. Reminds me of delays in getting the necessary help and equipment to suffering people in the gulf area due to red tape and bureacracy.” Richard Hornack
“I am a retired Registered Nurse, I have seen the suffering of patients dying of cancer,leaving loved ones too early, with terrible quality of life in their last weeks. Provenge represents a new way of treating cancer by harnessing our immune system. This in turn gives hope and good quality of life to prostate cancer patients. If Provenge is not paid for by medicare/medicaid what incentive do any pharmaceutical companies have to develop new and improved treatments for cancer or other disease? Don’t shut down research! Please give it your broadest coverage.” Gloria Johnson
pharmavet
Sven, it looks like you skipped your last anger management class.
Anne PME
I seem to recall from the skirmish over Medicare lymphoma drug/procedure reimbursement that if Medicare does not cover a procedure/drug, then the hospital or other provider cannot provide the drug and or drug/service to anyone?
Most if not all hospitals participate with Medicare. So, if Medicare does not reimburse for Provenge and/or Provenge treatment procedures, then no one can get provenge treatment at that hospital. So basically, the drug is FDA approved but no one in the US can access it.
Theodore Jerome Cohen
If women had prostates, not only would they have marched on Washington and castrated every male within the FDA by now, but they would have done the same in Congress as well.
Perhaps a visit to the porno-viewing SEC might have been a third venue in which to vent their anger, given that neither the FDA, Congress, nor the SEC seemed in the lest bit interested in addressing to tragedy associated with 100,000 men dying of prostate cancer between May 8, 2007 and the approval of Provenge in May of 2010 . . . men, who, in many cases, would have benefitted from access to Provenge.
It’s a tragedy of immense dimensions that men are not better advocates of their own health. If they were, Provenge would have been on the market in 2007, and we would NOT be going through this foolishness now.
MacT@garmin
My uncle had kidney failure, and they were the same way (but in reverse) with the anti-rejection drugs. They would pay for 3 years and then they stopped. But they would pay to give you dialysis for life. The drugs were WAY less expensive than the dialysis. I don’t understand insurance and the government at all.
2crazy2bU
Convicted Felon Michael Milken and Doctor Howard Scher made hundreds of millions of dollars preventing this therapy from getting to cancer patients in 2007 and resulted in the premature deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.
Are convicted felon Michael Milken and Doctor Howard Scher once again trying to make money even if it kills Americans? I’m just sayin.
Convicted felon Michael Milken and Doctor Howard Scher.
Medical Medicare CareSource
I know lots of people are talking about this very thing
Christopher
Mike Milken served his time and since then has founded Faster Cures, a group that works towards accelerateing drug development, he heads the Prostate Cancer Foundation, and also was a founder of the Melanoma Research Alliance.
I remember this link was brought up months ago when the topic was discussed then. Would 2crazy care to elaborate on how Milken made money from somehow being involved in withholding a treatment for the very cancer which his Foundation is out to cure?