ESMO 2026 | An overview of the financial barriers to accessing novel therapies in oncology
Hemant Malhotra, MBBS, MD, Mahatma Gandhi Medical College Hospital, Jaipur, India, discusses the advancements in cancer treatment and the challenges posed by economic constraints. While private and government insurance have improved access to curable cancers, the high cost of newer therapies such as targeted therapies and immunotherapies remains a significant barrier, even for insured patients, due to insurance caps. This interview took place at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2026 Congress in Madrid, Spain.
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Transcript
So, you know, when I started my career, there was a whole bunch of curable cancer patients which we could not treat because of economic issues. But now, because of private insurance coming up and government insurance coming up in a big way, there is a huge majority of at least curable cancers which we can treat. So that is a major advance which has happened. But with the advent of all these new drugs coming in, targeted therapies, immunotherapies, bispecifics, CAR T cells and the other cellular therapies, these are very very expensive and even though they are life-saving, they are out of reach of most of the, even the insured patients because the insurance always has a cap...
So, you know, when I started my career, there was a whole bunch of curable cancer patients which we could not treat because of economic issues. But now, because of private insurance coming up and government insurance coming up in a big way, there is a huge majority of at least curable cancers which we can treat. So that is a major advance which has happened. But with the advent of all these new drugs coming in, targeted therapies, immunotherapies, bispecifics, CAR T cells and the other cellular therapies, these are very very expensive and even though they are life-saving, they are out of reach of most of the, even the insured patients because the insurance always has a cap. So it’s very frustrating to work in an environment where you know that a curable treatment is available and you just can’t give it to the patient because of economic reasons. So we do have that you know gap, that frustration between what is available and what we can give the patient, what the patient really needs and can’t afford that troubles us quite a lot.
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