If you take a look at the list of new MM therapies hitting the market in just the last 5 years, and the number that are in the pipeline, you can see there has been a surge of investment in MM treatments, when for years the only options were dex and ASCT.

I think all this investment has been bolstered by the market success that Revlimid and Velcade are seeing. These drugs are cheap to produce, sell for about $5k per weekly or biweekly dose, and that a large and growing number of people are very happy to pay for, because they are well tolerated for as long as they work. Revlimid is just a pill you take, Velcade is a shot in the arm, so both are very cheap to administer.

There is huge incentive to keep producing more of these MM treatments, because the MM becomes refractory to each successive therapy over time. If you can make a good first-line treatment which is effective for 3 years on average, that's more than $100k per patient, at what, 90% gross margin?

I don't mean "free market" in the libertarian sense. I mean it in the sense that investment capital follows investment opportunity, and we are definitely seeing that here.

I can't get past the fact that people almost certainly aren't paying for it. Insurance companies must be as very few could afford those costs. As many can't afford insurance, it's more like the free(ish) market. Thanks for your reply, I see what you mean now.