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This Viewpoint states that imatinib’s safety and effectiveness compare favorably with those of newer drugs used to treat chronic myeloid leukemia and points out that the expiration of imatinib’s patent confers a substantial cost advantage.
Via Krishan Maggon
The availability of generic imatinib will facilitate access to this costly drug in countries such as the United States and will contribute to eliminating the related financial hurdles that were documented in previous multinational studies.9 In such a scenario, if generic imatinib will cost between 10% and 30% as much as the branded product and the organization of care for patients with CML is optimized,8,9 an amelioration of CML long-term prognosis in the United States can be expected and will be testified by the shrinkage of the differences in CML mortality between Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results and other registries such as the Swedish Cancer Registry, which are presently approximately 20%.
Thus, what is “aging” here is only the lifespan of the imatinib patent; imatinib is well, and its generic form represents the true “new” TKI for 2015. Rigorous quality control on the activity and safety of generic imatinib and a sufficiently high number of producers (>5) will be vital to ensure confidence in its use.