Cohen hopes to come up with a pill form of the venom to use in the U.S. In China, the injections are given daily for 14 consecutive days, or five days a week for three weeks. That would be too costly at U.S. hospitals.”

"Wow, you are talking fourteen or fifteen shots to see benefits in advanced liver, pancreatic and lung cancer but somehow that’s too expensive for U.S. hospitals?
That part of the toad story really jumped out at me…"

The US has more stringent approvals for drugs. It takes millions just to get the drug to clinical trials, and millions more to finally get it approved. If it's not approved by the FDA, then it's a no-go unless they do it on an experimental level, in which there is nothing to be made, and insurance will not cover experimental drugs.
The money that needs to be recovered from start to end of drugs is staggering, that's why most new drugs are expensive.
Just an example, but one small bag of chemotherapy is roughly $9000. If by some chance it's not being used, then the hospital bought it, and wasted money most don't have, or insurance didn't cover and they get stuck with the bills.

The drug company needs their cut, and the hospital ups the price to offset the fact that most are in the negatives. Regardless of what people may think, many, if not most hospitals, don't make money and are constantly in debt.

It's a continuing cycle that many other countries don't have to worry about. But they also don't have the level of assurance without the regulations the FDA have.

[ Hide Replies ]

• TX Press: Cancer turns to toxic toads - W von Papineäu, Wed Jan 23 07:07:49 2008
• RE: TX Press: Cancer turns to toxic toads - Upscale, Wed Jan 23 08:11:11 2008
• I would imagine - SoLA, Thu Jan 24 02:21:08 2008
• RE: TX Press: Cancer turns to toxic toads - TJP, Fri Jan 25 10:07:14 2008