YouSaid · the spoken record

Michael J. Apkon

lines on the record: 5
first: 2014-12-05
most recent: 2014-12-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“A major trend in healthcare that's very exciting to watch is what I would call the consumerization or retailization of healthcare. Consumers becoming much more involved in the purchase of healthcare. And that's happening because we're seeing prices becoming much more transparent. And that has a lot to do with the ACA and that the individual is becoming more accountable for what he or she buys with respect to healthcare. With higher copays and higher deductibles, you're going to want to be a smarter shopper with respect to what types of healthcare you're going to buy insurance, what doctors you're going to choose, what hospitals you choose to go to. Historically, this has been an industry that we've had opaqueness in pricing. You have no idea what your procedure costs, how much your doctor charges. But I think that's all going to go by the wayside over time as consumers become much more how they're going to have to foot more of the bill.”
2014-12-05 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · A Revolution in Cancer Treatment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, they don't work for everyone, but they do work for a subset of patients. Let me give you the example of late-stage melanoma. If you were diagnosed with that disease five years ago, your chances of being alive over a one to two year period are only about 10%. But today with immunotherapy and especially combinations of drugs, and you combine two checkpoint inhibitors, we are seeing survival rates of over 80 to 90 percent. So that's really remarkable what we have seen going from 10% of patients being alive after two years to now 88% of patients being alive after two years. That's in one disease. In other tumor types such as lung cancer or renal cancer or other tumors where we have seen data, we are seeing survival rates in the 25 to 40 percent range. So still a subset of patients, but much higher cure rates or much higher survival rates than we have seen with traditional therapy.”
2014-12-05 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · A Revolution in Cancer Treatment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We are seeing a subset of patients actually become cured of their disease. So the early data that we have seen, in fact it's not that early, the data that we've seen recently shows much higher survival rates compared to chemotherapy or compared to targeted therapy because the immune system remembers once you retrain the immune system, the immune system remembers to fight off the cancer cells and that's why we're seeing these exciting cure rates in a subset of patients. So back to your question on pricing. Payers have not pushed back on that high cost of drugs because the cost of a cure is priceless. And so far these drugs have been very expensive. That does add the question though, what about drugs that don't cure patients? And I think that's where we're going to see pricing pressure.”
2014-12-05 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · A Revolution in Cancer Treatment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's a huge issue for the industry. But yes, these drugs are very expensive. There are two immuno oncology drugs on the market today, and they cost between $120 to $150,000 for a full course of treatment. And in fact, most of the newer oncology drugs, whether they're immunotherapy drugs or targeted therapy drugs, cost between $50 to $150,000 per treatment, which is astronomical, obviously. I do think that immuno oncology drugs are able to get those kinds of prices because these drugs for the first time, we've actually seen these drugs bend the survival curve. So a problem with chemotherapy and a problem with targeted therapy is that you see initial strong responses, the tumor reacts initially to the therapies, but then over time your body builds up a resistance. And sadly, over time, most patients die of refractory diseases. But what's so exciting about immuno oncology is that we”
2014-12-05 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · A Revolution in Cancer Treatment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, well, immuno oncology is, in my view, the most exciting development we have seen in the cancer field in decades. And I think it will represent a paradigm shift in the way patients are treated with cancer. We're going to, immunotherapy drugs will do away with chemotherapy over time. What immuno oncology drugs do is that they actually target your immune system as opposed to targeting your tumor cells. So what these drugs do is that they harness or retrain your immune system to identify in target tumor cells. And we've seen remarkable results, especially in refractory tumors such as lung, renal melanoma, as well as many, many other tumor types, and results that are very striking, especially compared to traditional drugs.”
2014-12-05 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · A Revolution in Cancer Treatment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT