Medicare expenditures for discarded oncology therapies

• Published in: Journal of clinical oncology Vol. 40; no. 16_suppl; p. 6552
• Main Authors: Scheckel, Caleb, Desai, Aakash, Jensen, Chelsee, Orme, Jacob, Pritchett, Joshua, Mahipal, Amit, Khera, Nandita, Go, Ronald S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.06.2022
• ISSN: 0732-183X; 1527-7755
• DOI: 10.1200/JCO.2022.40.16_suppl.6552

6552 Background: Significant amounts of expensive oncology drugs are discarded resulting in waste and financial consequences for patients. Beginning in 2023, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) will require drug manufacturers to refund Medicare for any single-use drugs where greater than 10% of the drug is wasted. We explored potential IIJA-associated savings through assessment of patterns in spending for discarded oncology agents between 2017-2020. Methods: We utilized the Medicare Part B Discarded Drug Units database from 2017-2020. Using J codes, we extracted spending and reimbursement data for discarded medications for antineoplastic and classical hematology therapies. The primary outcome was identification of therapies with high percentage of waste and the economic impact of retroactive application of the IIJA for discarded therapies. Results: Medicare Part B utilization data was extracted for a median 77 (64-152) oncologic therapies per year with median reimbursement for discarded treatments of $590 M ($566-616). From 2017-2020, bortezomib, romiplostim, and nab-paclitaxel were consistently among the top 5 therapies by value of wasted product. Pembrolizumab waste by value declined significantly after 2017 following transition to fixed dosing. In 2020, the top 5 therapies by value of wasted product were bortezomib, nab-paclitaxel, trastuzumab, romiplostim, and cabazitaxel with a value of $278 M. In 2020, the agents with the highest percentage of wasted product were bortezomib (27%), cabazitaxel (28%), decitabine (23%), topotecan (23%), and azacitidine (22%) with a collective discarded value of $160 M. Notably, these agents have weight-based dosing and single-use vials. Based upon the average number of drug claims per recipient and volume of product discarded, eliminating drug waste would allow an additional 6564 patients to receive treatment with discarded bortezomib. The number of additionally treated patients for the other top 5 agents: cabazitaxel (1216), decitabine (1509), topotecan (291), and azacitidine (2682). Retroactive application of IIJA policy would have impacted a median 20 (12-26) oncology agents resulting in median annual cost savings of $153 M (142-157) and the median annual spending on wasted oncology therapies would decline to $440 M (410-466). Conclusions: The IIJA would have yielded a median annual savings of $153 M in Medicare spending if applied retroactively. Given a 10% waste cutoff, a limited number of agents would be targeted by this legislation. In our study, we observe that drugs associated with weight-based dosing and single-use drug vials account for most drug waste. Strategies to minimize discarded units (through storage of unused product, approval of multi-dose vial formulations, or fixed-dose therapies) could yield substantial savings while enabling health equity in collaboration with communities with difficult access to these drugs.