Oh my, pennies from heaven! At $5000/mo or so, Johnson & Johnson must be ecstatic at the idea of so many more people eligible for treatment with it. $60,000/yr? How does insurance cope with such costs, propagating across who knows how many more people? This could be interesting.
Management of Patients with Biochemical Recurrence after Local Therapy for Prostate CancerFrom the article:
Nearly three quarters of a million American men who have been treated with prostatectomy and/or radiation therapy are experiencing an increasing prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level, a condition known as biochemical recurrence (BCR). Post localized therapy, some of these men will develop distant metastases with time, but many years may pass before signs of clinical progression appear. So, wow, think of that. By simplistic math, 750,000 men with BCR, not now eligible for Zytiga, suddenly potentially are. And "years may pass" before clinical progression? Again, Wow! 750,000 * $60,000/yr is, hold onto your hat, $45 Billion! Every. Year.
Do you suppose insurance companies will simply exclude such treatments? I've seen estimates of $100,000 per Quality Adjusted Life Year as estimates for the value of extending life.
I'm not sure how all of this adds up (multiplies out?), but the potential cost of this is staggering!