The impact of pricing strategy on the costs of oral anti-cancer drugs.

Overall, flat pricing had significantly greater costs compared to linear pricing during dose reductions of anti-cancer drugs. While there is a general expectation that the cost of drugs should decrease with dose reduction, drugs with flat pricing were generally found to have increased cost per mg and no change in the cost per cycle. The resultant increased spending on drug acquisition (despite purchasing lower doses) lead to financial wastage, which has significant implications on cost-effectiveness considerations and budgets. Future economic evaluations should take into consideration the hidden costs associated with dose reductions of flat priced drugs.