Hospitals are shelling out more for immunotherapy

Cancer immunotherapies increasingly account for a sizable chunk of hospital drug payments, according to a new study.

As STAT's Ed Silverman reports, there was a 199% rise in immunotherapy spending by hospitals during the first three-quarters of this year, as compared to the same time period of the previous year, per Lumere, a research and analytics firm that focuses on hospitals and generated the data from 26 facilities across four hospitals systems. Merck’s Keytruda ranked especially popular.

Migraine treatments, meanwhile, are also making up a larger portion of hospital spending — there was 90% growth in spending in the category, which has generated substantial interest thanks to a pair of new drugs that were launched last year.

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