$3 billion will be wasted on unused portion of cancer drugs

Waste pads the bill, a study finds, because infused cancer drugs are distributed in the U.S. in vials that usually contain more medicine than most patients need.

Researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York estimate that wasted cancer medicine in the U.S. this year will add up to nearly $3 billion in excess costs.

“Hopefully, our regulators will take this as a problem worth addressing,” the study’s lead author, Dr. Peter Bach, said in an interview.

The study, published Tuesday in BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal), details how drugmakers, hospitals and cancer doctors make money on unused cancer medicine.

Insurers and cancer patients will pay at least another $1 billion on unused medicine in 2016, based on the markups hospitals and doctors charge over a vial’s price every time they infuse patients with those cancer drugs, the researchers concluded.

In Europe and other places where regulators have more control over drug prices and dose sizes, more vial sizes typically are available, limiting waste.

The researchers say regulators could require manufacturers to supply multiple vial-size options, and the FDA and other federal health agencies need to reconcile their disparate guidelines on vial size and when leftover medicine from one vial can be given to another patient.