How much does a box of dasatinib cost?

Dasatinib is mainly used to treat Philadelphia chromosome-positive (Ph+) chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) patients who are resistant or intolerant to imatinib mesylate. Adult patients in the chronic phase, accelerated phase, or blast phase can be treated with dasatinib. In addition, dasatinib can also be used to treat other types of leukemia and solid tumors.

Dasatinib is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor with multiple targets. At nanomolar concentrations, it inhibits BCR-ABL, SRC family (SRC, LCK, YES, FYN), c-KIT, EPHA2, and PDGFRβ. In patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), the tyrosine kinase activity of BCR-ABL is dysregulated, leading to the growth, proliferation, and survival of cancerous hematopoietic cells. Dasatinib binds to both active and inactive conformations of the ABL kinase domain with higher affinity than imatinib. Dasatinib inhibits cell growth in chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cell lines that overexpress BCR-ABL. In addition, dasatinib has in vitro activity against imatinib-sensitive or -resistant leukemia cell lines. It has been suggested that dasatinib is able to overcome imatinib resistance caused by mutations in the BCR-ABL kinase domain because it does not require interaction with certain residues involved in these mutations.

Dasatinib is now available in China and has been included in my country’s Class B medical insurance reimbursement items. Currently, dasatinib on the domestic market is divided into two categories: original drugs and domestic generic drugs. The original dasatinib comes in a box of 60 tablets (50 mg each), and the price after medical insurance reimbursement is around 5,000 yuan. The domestic generic version comes in a box of 7 tablets (50 mg each), and the price is about 400 yuan. At the same time, information shows that there are multiple generic versions of dasatinib on the market in India and Bangladesh, of which the price of 60 tablets (50mg each) ranges from 600 to 1,000 yuan. Compared with the domestic version, overseas generic drugs are obviously more cost-effective.