Money back guarantee for the NHS
The excellent Marginal Revolution highlights this report in the New York Times.
Essentially Johnson & Johnson have declared that they will sell their cancer drug Velcade to the NHS on the basis that if there is not a reduction in tumor size after a trial period they will refund the cost.
Velcade doesn’t come cheap, it can cost $48,000 (~£24,000) a patient, but obviously Johnson & Johnson think it will work for many people and want to encourage its use.
Whether this will encourage the byzantine bureaucracy of the NHS and NICE to use a drug which could save many lives or not is another matter. Given the cost they may be afraid it will work. Such is the cost for our wonderful NHS though.
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