Thursday, July 12, 2012

New Cancer Drugs Reach US Patients Earlier but at a Price

A report released by Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development concludes that FDA approved more cancer drugs and faster than European regulators during 2000-2011.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Cost of Cancer Drug Development, 4 Billion. Cost to Patient, 0.1 Million. Benefit, Priceless! Business Model, Unsustainable

I recently rediscovered an article by Forbes's Mathew Herper, "The Truly Staggering Cost Of Inventing New Drugs." In this article, Mathew pegs the true cost of bringing drugs to market at 4 billion dollars.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Adolescent and Young Cancer Survivors Face Long-Term Health Problems

A recent study in the journal Cancer suggests that teenagers and young adults (15-29 years old at diagnosis) who survived cancer often have poor health compared to their peers later in life.  Long-term consequences of cancer, treatments and behavior (including approach to life) affect health of body and mind.


Researchers from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, led by Eric Tai, examined data from 4054 adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors in the registry called Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).

Friday, July 6, 2012

What is Cancer

Sometimes the most obvious and commonplace things are paradoxically equally hard to describe because we often do not think how to define them unless somebody throws a curve ball and asks!  "What is cancer?" is one such apparently obvious thing.