Cancer Gold Rush Sparks Billions in Spending Over Unproven Drugs
Pharma companies are spending billions on a treatment based off old drugs, with little evidence it will extend lives.
In one of the biggest cancer spending sprees in years, pharmaceutical giants are pouring billions into developing treatments linking old drugs together — with little proof they can help patients live longer.
It’s an industry gold rush based on a tantalizing prospect: a new class of treatments that might dethrone Merck & Co.’s Keytruda, an immunotherapy used in a range of cancers and one of the world’s best-selling medicines. The drugs aren’t based on a breakthrough discovery. Instead, they combine versions of Keytruda and Roche Holding AG’s Avastin into a single drug. With the individual therapies, combinations have been tested repeatedly with limited success in prolonging lives.