So you are mischaracterizing the biologics then. They are indicated for UC in the US. It's just that the doctor thought that combined, higher doses would work better (and apparently it did).

The prednisone still had him shitting blood 20 times a day. Cheap indeed.

How do we even have a conversation if you take drugs that are approved for treating a condition and just hand wave that they are "not tested"?

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2024/76...

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2013/10...

The combination has not been tested in a way that could show efficacy, as far as I can tell

I'm not against experimenting with new drugs, I just don't think we should force insurers to pay since 99% of the time the experiments will not work

We should move toward a pay for performance model but not torch the cost controls while we're at it

Why not force society (via insurance premiums) to pay for some testing? It's not like combining drugs with different mechanisms is a stupid experiment.

The gold standard for testing the combination would be to test it against the standard of care, so it's fairly precious to complain that the doctor and patient here don't have a big enough pool.

We do, and it's ongoing, and it's really really expensive and getting worse