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Bishal Gyawali: What oncologists and cancer patients perceive as meaningful benefit or justified prices

Bishal Gyawali/scri.queensu.ca

Nov 8, 2024, 19:11

Bishal Gyawali: What oncologists and cancer patients perceive as meaningful benefit or justified prices

“One of the most important global oncology cancer policy studies our group has published. Open-access in ESMO Open.

What constitutes meaningful benefit of cancer drugs in the context of LMICs? A mixed-methods study of oncologists’ perceptions on endpoints, benefit, price, and value of cancer drugs – ESMO Open

Authors: S.S. Datta, V. Sharma, A. Mukherjee, S. Agrawal, B. Sirohi, B. Gyawali

We talk a lot about ‘meaningful benefit’ or ‘appropriate prices’ of cancer drugs, but there is no data on what oncologists and patients perceive as meaningful benefit or justified prices.

We interviewed Indian oncologists and established that a 4.5-month improvement in PFS or OS was expected as a minimum from cancer drugs. The justified price for this improvement was 120 USD a month for PFS drugs and 360 USD a month for OS drugs.

We thus established the first benchmark for what constitutes meaningful benefit and justified drug prices.

Next step would be to interview oncologists in other LMICs as well as HICs to set these benchmarks, as well as interview patients to gain perspectives from patients’ side on what constitutes meaningful gains and prices for cancer drugs. We are planning such studies and looking for funders 🙂
Stay tuned!

Huge kudos to Soumitra Shankar Datta MD FRCPsych who led this project from inception to finish. Proud of all coauthors and collaborators, including Bhawna Sirohi.”

Bishal Gyawali, MD, PhD, is a medical oncologist from Nepal. Currently an Associate Professor at Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada, and affiliated with Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, USA, he is involved in global oncology initiatives. Dr. Gyawali serves on several committees, including the WHO Essential Medicines List Cancer Medicines Working Group and ASCO’s Health Equity and Outcomes Committee, contributing significantly to cancer policy and evidence-based oncology.