When the market fails, patients pay

Drug shortages can occur for any number of reasons — say, natural disasters at production plants or surging demand caused by an outbreak. But, as STAT’s Meghana Keshavan writes, there are often commercial forces at work.

Take the example of BCG — an immunotherapy drug used to treat bladder cancer that is in desperately short supply. Although the drug is no longer under patent, companies other than Merck (the only manufacturer for the U.S. and European markets) have very little incentive to round out supplies. It’s priced at a relatively modest $100 to $200 a dose, substantially cheaper and less effective than chemotherapy.

And patients are left in the lurch.

“This BCG shortage is a huge deal,” said Dr. Robert Abouassaly, a urologist at Cleveland Clinic. “We don’t have any alternatives that are as effective for these patients.”

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