A good start but look at other cancer drugs as well: Docs
Times of India | 24 July 2024
Kolkata: The waiving off of the customs duty on three imported cancer drugs will make these expensive drugs more affordable to patients, said doctors. But they also said more steps were needed to bring down the cost of other expensive drugs.
Trastuzumab deruxtecan, used mostly in breast cancer treatment both for curative and palliative care, costs around Rs 80,000 a vial (the original innovator product).For curative therapy, a patient needs 12 to 20 vials, thus costing a patient between Rs 9.6 lakh and Rs 16 lakh.
“It is used as a targeted therapy for breast cancer patients who are positive to an antigen called HER2. Between 20% and 30% of breast cancer patients are HER2 positive. For curative treatment, a patient needs 12 to 20 vials. Hence waving off the customs duty will be good for patients,” said surgical oncologist Soumen Das, head of the breast cancer unit at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Cancer Hospital.
All three drugs — Trastuzumab deruxtecan, Osimertinib and Durvalumab — are manufactured by Astrazeneca, a multinational firm. They are used either as targeted therapy or as immunotherapy drugs and are not regularly sold from retail outlets. Sourav Dutta, director Oncology at Medica and head of neck & head surgery, hailed the move. However, he said it’s a peanut and there was need for reducing duty on all chemotherapy drugs that are imported.
“Osimertinib is very effective in treatment of EGFR positive (a specific mutation) lung cancer. A patient has to spend roughly around Rs 1.5 lakh a month. While waiving off the duty will cut down on a patient’s spending, what about the GST levied by both the Centre and the state? Also, during the interim budget there was mention of cervical cancer vaccine for a particular age group. Nothing has come up on it till now,” said radiation oncologist Subir Ganguly of Medica Superspecialty Hospital.
“It’s a welcome move. There are more immunotherapy and targeted cancer drugs that are imported as they are not manufactured in India. Prices of these drugs also need to be brought down,” said onco surgeon Arnab Gupta, medical director at Saroj Gupta Cancer Centre & Research Institute
A 500 mg vial of durvalumab, another drug used for treatment of cancer like lung and biliary tract, costs of Rs 1.5 lakh.
“Apart from patient benefit, lower costs and higher usage rates might encourage further research and data collection on efficacy and safety of these drugs in India,” said Snehendu Koner, clinical trial facilitator.
According to medicine retailers and wholesalers, this will translate into substantial reduction in medicine billsperson. “However, it will take at least a month before the new batch of medicines reaches stores,” said Sajal Ganguly, general secretary of Bengal Chemist and Druggists Association.
“These are generally not sold through retail counters. However, city drug stores have already been offering discounts on these medicines,” said Somnath Ghosh of Metro Pharma.
Rajendra Khandelwal of Dhanwantary Pharma, who is also the president of the health and wellness committee of Bharat Chamber of Commerce said, “It’s a welcome move. But there are nearly 50 cancer drugs sold regularly. We hope that going forward, the govt considers lowering import duty on them too.”