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  3. The debate in rich countries about the high price of drugs is a furious and frustrating one. The controversy is already having a

The debate in rich countries about the high price of drugs is a furious and frustrating one. The controversy is already having a

admin2022-02-27  26
问题     The debate in rich countries about the high price of drugs is a furious and frustrating one. The controversy is already having an impact on spending on drugs, suggest new figures from the QuintilesIMS Institute, a research firm. The rate of growth in spending on prescription medicines in America fell to 4. 8％ in 2016, less than half the average rate of the previous two years. Michael Levesque of Moody’s, a rating agency, reckons that pressure over pricing is contributing to a deceleration in earnings growth at pharma firms. Public scrutiny constrains their flexibility over what they can charge and allows payers to get tougher.
    In one area, however, earnings are expected to keep rising: cancer. Oncology is the industry’s bright spot, says Mr. Levesque. The grim fact is that two-fifths of people can now expect to get cancer in their lifetime because of rising longevity. This is one of the reasons why the number of new cancer drugs has expanded by more than 60％ over the past decade. The late-phase pipeline of new medicines contains more than 600 cancer treatments. New cancer drugs are being approved more quickly.
    More are arriving all the time. On May 1st, America’s Food and Drug Administration approved durvalumab (trademarked Imfinzi), a drug from AstraZeneca, a British firm, which treats cancer of the bladder. Merck of America has pembrolizumab (Keytruda); Bristol-Myers Squibb has nivolumab (Opdivo) ; and Switzerland’s Boche has atezolizumab (Tecentriq).
    These checkpoint inhibitors are expected to account for much of the growth in spending on cancer medicines. Merck, in particular, has done well with Keytruda. A sense of the value of the new drugs came when Opdivo failed a key clinical trial in August last year. The market value of Bristol-Myers Squibb fell by 16％, and its shares have been in the doldrums since.
    Handsome prices for cancer drugs are far less pleasing for governments, insurers and patients. Even five years ago, most newly-approved treatments had gross annual prices of more than $100,000. But the pressure on budgets has worsened with the new generation of more expensive immuno-oncology drugs, and could become more severe still if they are found to work best in combination with each other.
    Making a mistake over which cancer drugs to use can be extremely costly for a payer, as illustrated by a disastrous recent attempt by Britain’s government to increase access to new cancer drugs by creating a special fund in 2010. By the time it closed in 2016, ￡1. 27bn ($1. 83bn) had been spent, mostly on drugs that were later shown to be ineffective for the conditions they were tried on.
    Some think a better approach would be to try drugs out on patients and for payers to pay a price based on how well they work, an approach known as " value-based pricing". That would mean collecting a great deal of data from patients, which would be far from straightforward.
    Some companies, such as Genentech, a biotech company owned by Roche, are trying to do just this, as are some payers including American health insurers. But however reassuring it is to know that money is going on drugs that are proven to work, it does not solve the broader problem of affordability.

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答案D
解析 根据题干Michael Levesque定位到第二段，该段第一、二句指出：In one area，however，earnings are expected to keep rising：cancer. Oncology is the industry’s bright spot，says Mr. Levesque. 由此可知，有一个领域的收入仍有望持续上涨：抗癌。莱维斯克表示，肿瘤药物是医药行业的亮点。故答案为D项。这里的the biggest profit point=bright spot。A项thinks that Oncology may address the problem of profit有干扰，扭曲了原文中第Bee Oncology is the industry’s bright spot，says Mr. Levesque“肿瘤药物是医药行业的亮点”的表达，但文中并未提到解决利益问题。
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