One of the cornerstones of Joe Biden's election platform was reducing the costs of pharmaceutical drugs, specifically cancer drugs. One such drug, Novartis' Kymriah, was approved in 2017 for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and was listed at the high price of $475,000. Although one of the most expensive drugs in the U.S., it is not alone in its pricing. In 2014, all new FDA approved cancer drugs cost at least $120,000 per year of use. Cancer drugs have seemingly had nonstop increasing prices over time, and this reality is the focus of my analysis. In this thesis I will work to identify specific factors of the anticancer drug market that most directly impact drug prices. I focus specifically on drugs that treat metastatic cancer because their consistent reporting of survival time in clinical trials allows for a clear understanding of their effectiveness. With a dataset of 84 anticancer drugs approved between 1995 and 2020, I will identify that the launch price of cancer drugs increased by approximately $17,000 per year when accounting for inflation and drug health benefits. I also determine several factors that impact the prices of the drugs, such as achieving FDA priority review, being manufactured by a firm with multiple anticancer drugs, and the baseline survival of the cancer itself. The last part of my analysis will focus on the change in anticancer drug price after launch to the market, where my results show increasing prices over time for the most effective drugs along with higher launch prices. I suggest that this noticeable anticancer drug price growth comes from inelastic price demand and limits on the negotiating power of the U.S. government with manufacturers.
"},{"label":"Degree","value":["Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors"]},{"label":"Administrative Note","value":"Drupal Node ID: 23585