The Costs of Caring: Who Pays? Who Profits? Who Panders?(Treatment for Lung and Breast Cancer‪)‬

Avastin, a widely used colon cancer drug manufactured by San Francisco-based biotech company Genentech, has proven a somewhat effective treatment for lung and breast cancer when administered at twice the normal dose. In February, the New York Times carried a story about Avastin's extraordinarily high price when used in this alternative way: $100,000 for one year's treatment--a figure fully twice the price of the normal dose, even though producing the higher dose costs the company little additional money. And the treatment yields only an average gain in life expectancy of five months--very modest relative to the cost. What garnered media attention, however, was Genentech's novel justification for the price: "the inherent value of these life-sustaining technologies." (1) Rather than making the usual appeal to high research costs, the company cited the pricelessness of human life, implying a moral reason for the pricing decision. I will pass in silence over the obviously self-serving disingenuousness of this appeal. The fact is that many in our society--and perhaps a substantial majority--think human life should be thought of as priceless. That assertion can be taken in three very different ways.