AUTHOR=Buma Alessandra I. G. , Piet Berber , ter Heine Rob , van den Heuvel Michel M. , Brinkman Paul , Broek Daan van den , Burgers Sjaak , Ciompi Francesco , Cristescu Simona M. , Ginneken Bram van , Grünberg Katrien , Hendriks Lizza , Hiltermann Jeroen , Housein Firdaus Mohamed , Huitema Alwin , Inge Jakko van , Jacobs Colin , Koenen Hans , Ligtenberg Marjolijn , Maitland-van der Zee Anke H. , Noort Vincent van der , Prokop Mathias , Rètel Valesca , Roder Heinrich , Rossum Huub van , Smeets Ruben , Würdinger Thomas TITLE=Integrating treatment cost reduction strategies and biomarker research to reduce costs and personalize expensive treatments: an example of a self-funding trial in non-small cell lung cancer JOURNAL=Frontiers in Pharmacology VOLUME=14 YEAR=2023 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pharmacology/articles/10.3389/fphar.2023.1274532 DOI=10.3389/fphar.2023.1274532 ISSN=1663-9812 ABSTRACT=

Personalization of treatment offers the opportunity to treat patients more effectively based on their dominant disease-specific features. The increasing number and types of treatment, and the high costs associated with these treatments, however, demand new approaches that improve patient selection while reducing treatment-associated costs to ensure sustainable healthcare. The DEDICATION-1 trial has been designed to investigate the non-inferiority of lower dosing regimens when compared to standard of care dosing regimens as a potential effective treatment cost reduction strategy to reduce costs of treatment with expensive immune checkpoint inhibitors in non-small cell lung cancer. If non-inferiority is confirmed, lower dosing regimens could be implemented for all therapeutic indications of pembrolizumab. The cost savings obtained within the trial are partly reinvested in biomarker research to improve the personalization of pembrolizumab treatment. The implementation of these biomarkers will potentially lead to additional cost savings by preventing ineffective pembrolizumab exposure, thereby further reducing the financial pressure on healthcare systems. The concepts discussed within this perspective can be applied both to other anticancer agents, as well as to treatments prescribed outside the oncology field.