Back to the Future: The Ever-Recurring Shortage of Critical Generic Cancer Drugs

DEJA-VU ALL OVER AGAIN

It is exasperating to see us running short, once again, of old drugs that – despite an expanding armamentarium of exciting, advanced therapies – continue to be backbone therapy for many types of cancers. There is no small irony to be found in the fact that the world’s richest economy cannot figure out a way to supply (at any price) nominally cheap life-extending drugs to all the people who need them – an incontestable truth that should make all of us wince. On a personal level, I feel a real sense of disappointment because independent work conducted by NAXION (then National Analysts) was part of the data package that went to Capitol Hill in 2012, documenting oncologists’ grave concerns about morbidity and potential mortality as a consequence of rationing. (That survey was part of a series of NA studies published over a period of five years, called “Oncologists Look at Oncology,” that gave voice to clinicians’ hopes and concerns about issues shaping the broad landscape of a dynamic clinical environment.) Producing data in support of public policy is a long and proud tradition for us, beginning with the invention of probability sampling to predict “dust bowl” crop yields in the late 1930’s.