The health-care system is throwing out millions of dollars’ worth of costly cancer drugs every year because of how they’re packaged by drugmakers, say experts.
The health-care system is wasting millions of dollars by buying cancer medications that are thrown out because of the way they are packaged by drug makers — in one-size-fits-all vials that hold too much for most patients, a study found.
“It’s outrageous,” said drug policy researcher Alan Cassels, who is familiar with the study.
“We have so many demands on our health-care dollars for drugs and doctors and hospitals and so on. So, to see this kind of waste is appalling.”
The waste costs as much as $102 million over a three-year period, according to the study published two years ago in the medical journal Cancer.
“What people don’t realize is that wastage is actually a real cost that’s borne by the provinces or hospitals [and] ultimately the taxpayers,” said Dr. Matthew Cheung, a senior co-author of the study and a hematologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.
The drugs are administered in very specific doses based on a patient’s weight and/or height, then, because of concerns about possible infection from reusing the same vial, nurses discard the rest.
Some hospitals have been trying to reduce waste by sharing vials, but can only do that with patients who need the same drug on the same day, since many of these medications have a short shelf life once opened.
The study looked at 12 high-priced injectable cancer drugs and found that the amount being wasted per vial ranged from zero to 87.5 per cent.
“We realized that drug wastage is actually a huge component of what we’re paying. And again, when we’re wasting drugs, we’re increasing costs without getting any extra benefit,” said Cheung.
In the U.K., the government told drug companies in 2016 they must produce some cancer medications in packaging that reduces waste if they wanted to be considered in the bidding process for which drugs it will purchase.
Since making the change, the U.K.’s National Health Service tells Go Public it’s saving an estimated 18 million pounds ($31 million Cdn) per year.
