A new study of private health insurers and the U.S. medicare program has revealed that up to $3 billion every year as a result of wasteful use and packaging of cancer medication.
According to New York Times, as much as one-third of certain cancer drugs go completely unused due to inefficient packaging. Because of the size of single dose bottles, many patients end up not using the entire thing. Safety regulations mandate that leftover medicine not be used, but thrown away instead.
The study posed this example: oftentimes certain drugs will only be available in 50 milligram vials, so if a patient needs 60 milligrams of a drug, two 50 milligram containers will be used. The excess 40 milligrams will be disposed as a consequence of safety regulations.
These 40 milligrams can still safely be used within six hours of using the initial 10 milligrams, but common practice and regulation dictates that the leftover be thrown away.
The study, which can be found published in the British Medical Journal, looked at the top 20 cancer drugs packaged in single-dose vials. Additionally, the amount of the dose is typically contingent on the weight of the patient.
The researchers concluded that up to 33 percent of these top 20 cancer drugs, which end up amounting to 93 percent of all cancer drugs sold, go wasted and unused after each dose is administered.
As a result, the researchers posit that up to $1.8 billion, which represents 10 percent of the projected revenue that will come from cancer drugs that will be thrown away.
An additional $1 billion will be wasted on unused drugs because of the markups that doctors and medical facilities charge when administering these cancer drugs to patients.
“Policy makers should therefore explore approaches that would reduce or eliminate paying for leftover drug,” the researchers wrote. “The FDA calls on companies to balance vial contents so that leftover drug is minimized yet they should also provide enough drug that more than one vial is rarely needed for a single dose.”