loquitur

Genentech: Britain's National Health Won't Pay for Avastin

Writer 'nova' posits that Avastin has no survival advantage over FOLFOX
chemotherapy, yet statistically-signific... studies such as ECOG 3200
show this is precisely the case, which is how Avastin received approval for this indication:

professional.cancercon...

Even if we concede that the OS advantage is only 2-3 months (but
longer for many, since this is a statistical median), that Britain's
medical economists want to override their doctors' recommendations
with hard-nosed evaluations of the worth of life extension would
never fly across the pond.

It's not hard to imagine thousands of lawsuits against a doctors or insurance companies here in the States with the following preamble "Ladies and gentleman of the jury, do you mean to tell me that
you cut my client's life eight weeks short because your
cost-benefit analysis showed he was not worth the extra $10K
cost of the drug combination over those weeks?". False economy!