Medicare To Cover Praecis Prostate Cancer Drug

Medicare will pay for Praecis Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s prostate cancer drug Plenaxis in certain patients, U.S. health officials said on Tuesday. The drug, known generically as abarelix, will be covered in men at advanced stages of the disease who do not want to undergo surgical castration and who cannot take certain other drugs. The patients would also have to suffer from severe bone pain, a risk of neurological problems and difficulty urinating in order for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to cover the injectable drug. When Medicare, the nation's health insurance program for the elderly, decides to pay for a drug, private insurers often follow suit. It can also greatly boost a drug's sales. Plenaxis aims to reduce the levels of testosterone, the hormone that makes most prostate tumors grow. Prostate cancer is the second most common form of cancer in U.S. men, after various skin cancers, according to the American Cancer Society.

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