Michele McCourt on Potential New Therapies for Patients With Cancer

The high cost of new, innovative cancer treatments coming to market makes these therapies inaccessible to a lot of patients, said Michele McCourt, senior director of the CancerCare Co-Payment Assistance Foundation.

Transcript

What impact will new, potentially curative therapies have financially on patients and the healthcare system?

New, innovative treatments that are coming on the market are wonderful. But, if patients can’t access them then they are ineffective. These new treatments that are coming, I don’t really see what we’re seeing with how much they are costing but I don’t see them as accessible to a lot of these patients unless you have really good coverage. It depends on the benefit design and it depends on the medication. So, if it does fall under their medical, and if they are able to get it through their hospital coverage it may be affordable.

I don’t really know enough about the CAR Ts, but from the few that have come to market they are with a pretty heavy price tag. Although, if they are successful, they have the potential of really saving lives. I think the jury is still out on how that will affect patients and how accessible.