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Saturday, August 11, 2018

Latest Cycle Underway

And we're off. This month's labs look great. So yesterday was my monthly darzalex infusion. Super busy at Phan's office and I got there later than usual so it was a long day.  Interesting factoid...each darzalex infusion is about $14,000. I get copay assistance from the manufacturer, Janssen, plus my out of pocket from my insurance caps at $2,650 annually.  Also started my 21 days of 1 mg of pomalyst, which is an oral drug and gets shipped to my doctor's office. Factoid two is that a 21 day supply of pomalyst is about $17,000. I am extremely fortunate that via my insurance I am obligated to only pay $40 for the one month supply. I do get copay assistance on this as well from Celgene the manufacturer and end up paying $25/month. Factoid 3 there is not a monthly cap on oral chemo costs to the patient.  More and more chemo drugs are becoming oral. So folks are going bankrupt trying to pay for their oral chemo or they don't take them as prescribed.  There is a languishing bill, H.R. 1409 Cancer Drug Parity Act of 2017, in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which would make it so there are out of pocket caps for oral drugs just like with the infused drugs. Why it's not moving is anyone's guess. Although it doesn't take a lot of thought to come up with a potential reason.


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Berenson Oncology Success Rate

 Some reading about my myeloma specialist's success rate. A press release and an article from Targeted Oncology.