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Paper short abstract:

Medical innovations in cancer constitute a challenge for the future of the Welfare States. This communication explores how health innovations imply new political economy of cancer and how the British State try to render accessible drugs that are extremely expensives.

Paper long abstract:

Health care systems in Western countries are nowadays confronted with multiple difficulties that put into question their solvability and their durability. One of these challenges is their capacity to provide effective and efficient care to the population despite the crisis of public finances and the evolution of health problems. It is especially the case for cancer care. Since the middle of the 2000's a new kind of medicine has been developed: the use of targeted therapies. It consists in specific molecules given to the patient in association with more classical chemotherapy. Two critics are formulated by now: these drugs have uncertain effects (for the most sceptical actors it has minimal effect on the patient survival) and their "cost" is extremely high. Nevertheless public authorities can today hardly refuse the access to the market to these drugs for two reasons: the week effect of theses treatment does not mean that any improvement can be achieved in the future; the cost of drugs appears not as a robust argument for denying the access for the patients. The communication explores the controversies about the impact of the genomic and targeted therapies in cancer care on the consistency and the future of Welfare State in United-Kingdom.