Private health insurers and the U.S. Medicare program waste nearly $3 billion each year buying cancer medicines that end up being thrown out because of current packaging practices, findings of a new study reveal.
Researchers have found that at least one-third of some cancer drugs are not used because the single dose in vials are too much for most patients and safety regulations require that leftover medicine be thrown away.
For a patient who needs 60 milligrams of a drug that only comes in 50 milligram vials, for instance, doctors have to open two vials, but will end up disposing 80 percent of the content of the second vial because the patient does not need it.
Although the remaining 40 milligrams of the medicine can still be used within six hours, this does not happen most of the time.
For the study, which was published in the British Medical Journal, Peter Bach from Memorial Sloan Kettering and colleagues looked at the top 20 cancer drugs that are packed in single-dose vials and whose dose depends on the weight of the patient.
They found that up to 33 percent of these drugs, which represent 93 percent of cancer drugs sold, are unused after each dose is administered.
Based on these, the researchers estimate that $1.8 billion or 10 percent of the projected 2016 revenue will come from cancer drugs that are thrown away.
Another $1 billion will be paid for unused drugs because of the markups that hospitals and doctors charge every time they administer those drugs to their patients.
The researchers said that hospitals, doctors and companies all make money from the use of these drugs, albeit some of these profits would not have been possible if drug companies sold vials in sizes that are more in line with the needs of patients.
"Drug companies are quietly making billions forcing little old ladies to buy enough medicine to treat football players, and regulators have completely missed it," Bach said. "If we're ever going to start saving money in health care, this is an obvious place to cut."
Given the high price of cancer medicines, the researchers hope that federal regulators will see the issue as a problem worth addressing.
"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."
