Novel cancer drug stymied by rigid billing system

Minneapolis

A US government reimbursement system that does not fully cover the costs for Gilead Sciences Inc's complex blood cancer therapy is partly to blame for the slow uptake of the novel life-saving treatment, according to doctors who are trying to treat patients.

Only a handful of patients have received the therapy, Yescarta, two months after its approval, while waiting lists have risen to the hundreds at the 15 cancer centres authorised to administer the treatment in the US, Bloomberg News reported last Thursday.

The problem, said doctors at those centres, is that there is no billing code for the US$373,000 therapy in Medicare, the government plan that covers millions of elderly and disabled Americans. Gilead estimate…