Pay Only for Drugs That Help You

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/opinion/pay-only-for-drugs-that-help-you.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 9:38 AM
Subject: re: Pay Only for Drugs That Help You
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   Dr. Waksal's vision may revolutionize drug discovery and healthcare in some remote future, but the cases he cites point to a more modest change.  Our FDA still defines cancers by tissue of origin ("breast cancer", "colon cancer"...) while the drugs being developed to treat cancers target the genetic/biochemical derangement that drives them.  It is this mismatch that gives us findings of non-efficacy for a potential drug, even when it works well in those patients it was designed for. When the FDA allows Clinical Trials in populations chosen for what drives the cancers, rather than by the locations of those cancers, we will have more and better drugs for the fight.

Barry Haskell Levine