Herceptin

I love Herceptin, a drug I have been getting to treat my metastatic breast cancer for more than five years now.

The main reason I love Herceptin is that it is a targeted antibody, without the side effects of traditional cancer drugs: hair loss, fatigue, nausea, vomiting—you know the list. (Herceptin has one potentially serious side effect: congestive heart failure. I have a MUGA scan every few months to make sure my heart is still OK.)

But, and this is a big BUT, I don’t love the company that makes Herceptin, Genentech Inc., based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The reason? The cost of this life-saving drug is more than $6,200 for one dose. And I get Herceptin every three weeks.

As a result of the high cost of two drugs used to treat my cancer, Herceptin and Avastin (also made by Genentech), I am going to hit my lifetime max of $1 million on my health insurance in the Washington state high-risk pool before the end of 2007.

I’m not alone. The BBC reported recently that the high cost of Herceptin was threatening care for breast cancer patients in the United Kingdom.

The BBC report said, “Paying for the cancer drug Herceptin means treatment for other cancer patients will have to be dropped to ‘balance the books,’ doctors warn.”

Read more:

Herceptin in the United Kingdom

Herceptin costs ‘threaten care’

Herceptin 'linked to heart risk'

@ Jeanne Sather 2007.