Study Says Medicare Wasted $224 Million on Drugs Lacking Proven Benefit

In the past 10 months, the FDA evaluated drugs on the market for 10 cancer indications after having granted them accelerated approval based on surrogate endpoints and eventually found that the drugs had a confirmed lack of benefit in several indications — but not before Medicare spent $224 million on them from 2017 to 2019.

These are the findings of researchers from Harvard and the London School of Economics, in a study published in the Journal of The American Medical Association (JAMA).

Medicare spent an estimated inflation-adjusted $569 million on therapies granted accelerated approval, the researchers said, including $224 million for indications that were either voluntarily withdrawn by the manufacturers or recommended for withdrawal by the agency’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee.