Comment by jmcgough
1 day ago
I can understand being frustrated and cynical with the pharmaceutical industry, but I have never worked with a single doctor that approaches patient care with the goal of getting them "hooked" on something for life.
The pharmaceutical companies are not the ones making clinical decisions - in this case, it's a shared medical decision between a patient and their oncologist.
Having seen how horrific pancreatic cancer is, how difficult it is to treat, and the decades of slow research done by academic scientists to get to this point, I am elated that we have a tool to give patients more time with their families even if their cancer can't be "cured" with this particular drug.
This may seem unsatisfying, but it's real, measurable progress. KRAS has been known about since the earliest days of cancer research, so it's a true breakthrough to finally have a drug targeting it.
Pharmaceutical companies do make clinical decisions, it just isn't called a clinical decision. But they decide what research to pursue, and thereby decide which drugs exist for the doctor to choose.
They influence clinical decisions by adding to treatment options, but they do not make clinical decisions. If we believe that a drug's potential risks outweigh its benefits, clinicians will not prescribe it.