Tag: Cancer

Operational efficiencies of using one vs multiple bispecific antibodies for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and follicular lymphoma in the US

Jason Shafrin

That is the title of a new paper published in Future Oncology with co-authors Tara Graff,Savreet Bains Chawla,Monika Jun,Nicole Heaps,Abualbishr Alshreef,David Tybor,Donald C. Moore,Nadine Zawadzki, and Kathryn Spurrier. The abstract is below: Aim To quantify the time- and cost-savings to US oncology practices from using a single bispecific antibody (bsAb) for both relapsed/refractory (R/R) diffuse…

Payers and targeted therapy in oncology

Jason Shafrin

I was quoted in a recent article in Pharmaceutical Technology titled “Targeted therapies to join chemo as oncology treatment backbone“. An excerpt is below: Though payers could theoretically prioritise chemotherapy over the use of targeted treatments due to their lower price, Jason Shafrin, senior managing director of FTI’s Center for Healthcare Economics and Policy, notes…

Impact of breast cancer therapies goes beyond just health

Jason Shafrin

That is the finding from Daysal et al. (2025). We reproduce the results from an RCT showing the life-saving benefits of radiotherapy. We show radiation therapy also has economic returns: Ten years after diagnosis, treatment increases employment by 37 percent and earnings by 45 percent. Previous work has documented a substantial employment drop after a…

Patient preferences for attributes of bispecific antibodies for relapse/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in the US

Jason Shafrin

That is the title of a paper published today in Future Oncology with co-authors Erin Mulvey, Kyi-Sin Than, Sanjana Muthukrishnan, Alex Mutebi, Anindit Chhibber, Anthony Wang, Abualbishr Alshreef, Diala Harb, Victor Gonzalez, Sarah Quinlan, Vardhaman Patel and Patrick Connor Johnson. The study was conducted in collaboration with the Lymphoma Research Foundation. The abstract is below:…

Can Recurrence-Free or Disease-Free Survival be used Surrogate Endpoints for Overall Survival in Esophageal Cancer?

Jason Shafrin

The answer appears to be ‘yes’ according a recent paper written by Uchechukwu Love Anyaduba, Oluwatosin Qawiyy Orababa, Zion Faye, Nazia Rashid, Gregory Reardon and myself. The abstract is below: BackgroundCancer trials increasingly use surrogate endpoints, but it is unclear how well recurrence-free survival (RFS) or disease-free survival (DFS) specifically predict overall survival (OS) in…

Out of Pocket Costs for Follow-Up Tests After Abnormal Screening Mammogram and Their Impact on Breast Cancer Survival

Jason Shafrin

Today, the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network released a report titled “Out of Pocket Costs for Follow-Up Tests After Abnormal Screening Mammogram and Their Impact on Breast Cancer Survival.” The empirical analysis was conducted by myself and some colleagues at FTI Consulting (Shanshan Wang, Shurui Zhang, Citseko Staples Miller, and Sophia Mildred Setterberg). An…

What is ‘Bayesian Hierarchical Modelling’ and how can it be used to evaluate oncology treatments studied in basket trials?

Jason Shafrin

Should payers cover a new oncology treatment targeting specific biomarkers across multiple tumor types? One the one hand, one could require a separate trial for each tumor type. While this would be convincing evidence, it also is very expensive to conduct clinical trials for every tumor type, particularly if treatment efficacy is homogenous across tumor…