Drug Avastin
As more potentially life-saving, but expensive drugs come to
market, patients and insurance companies have difficult decisions to make. While
in theory people would pay anything to save their own life or that of a family
member, the efficacy of some of these drugs is uncertain and some are not
curative. For example, Genentech’s drug Avastin is not marketed as a
life-saving drug, but as a life-extending drug and is estimated to cost as much
as $100,000 per year. As a result of the above scenario please research Avastin
on the web (here are is a link to get you started:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/genentech_inc/index.html),
and then answer the following questions based on the research discovered on
Avastin:
â?¢ Who (free market, insurers, Government, drug companies)
should determine how demand is met? Use economic theory to support your claim.
â?¢ Do you believe that the government has an obligation to
set guidelines for who receive these drugs? If so, what should those guidelines
be?
â?¢ Should the insurance industry be obligated to pay for
Avastin treatments and if so, how does this impact other policy-holders? Why or
why not?
