Every Time You Think They've Hit Bottom, the Drug Companies Surprise You and Descend Even Deeper

If you watch television, like ever, you've no doubt seen the various "direct to patient" ads from drug companies hawking their drugs "designed" to treat what generally strike me, with apologies to all the "restless leg" sufferers out there, as mostly made up conditions.* 

Today, however, I saw what struck me as a new low in direct to patient marketing: Opdivo, Bristol Myers Squibb's new "treatment" for lung cancer. The commercial markets this as an alternative to other treatments for a very specific lung cancer, and shows lots of smiling, healthy looking people, but here's what it doesn't say:

The only patients eligible to take Opdivo are those with the specific form of cancer being targeted who have exhausted all other forms of cancer treatment.

Opdivo not intended to cure lung cancer, but to keep patients for whom treatment has failed alive longer -- i.e., to slow the final progression of the disease. Under trials, the drug extended the life expectancy for terminal patients ninety days. (Not stated in those results were what those additional ninety days were like, but despite the commercial, I'm guessing they didn't involve a lot of softball games.) 

The cost of treatment with Opdivo is $150,000 for the initial treatment, and then $14,000 a month for as long as treatment continues (which, likely as not, won't  be very long). 

Not surprisingly, a lot of medical insurance companies -- including the British Government -- are balking at the cost. 

But it's just so great that Bristol Myers Squibb decided to get a bunch of dying peoples' hopes up with lots of happy images and ambiguous promises broadcast over network television. 

Fucking ghouls. 

* Despite what you might think, as a general rule drug development isn't really about seeking solutions to problems. Rather, it's about seeking problems for solutions. This is to say, a drug is discovered that counteracts A, B and C, and then the company goes searching for all the situations in which A, B and C can be defined as problems.