STAT+: Lawmakers again urge the Biden administration to use federal law to widen access to a cancer drug
For the third time in less than a year, a group of lawmakers is urging the Biden administration to use a controversial provision of federal law to widen access to a pricey cancer medicine, an issue that has festered ever since cancer patients petitioned the federal government.
The medicine in their crosshairs is the Xtandi prostate cancer drug, which last year had a $156,000 list price, according to Elsevier Health. The treatment was developed at the University of California, Los Angeles, with U.S. taxpayer dollars — specifically, grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense. A key inventor was a professor at the school, which licensed the drug to a biotech that later struck a marketing deal with Astellas.
