Evidence and Research on Cancer Medicine Prices

Pricing for pharmaceuticals plays a significant role in facilitating access to medicines (Babar 2022; Vogler et al. 2016; Morgan et al. 2020). As part of the access to medicines debate, pricing is a major challenge in a large number of countries, whether it concerns setting the prices or measuring the prices (Leighl et al. 2021). This chapter provides updated evidence regarding research conducted on cancer medicines.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that data from numerous sources demonstrate that the pace of growth of cancer drug spending is significantly higher than the rate of development of newly diagnosed cancer cases. A portion of the rise in spending may be attributable to the increased use of cancer medications. However, rising drug expenses or a shift toward using more expensive cancer medications may be the main cause of the rising costs. Additionally, the rate of growth of expenditures for cancer medications is higher than the rate of growth of...