I question whether a patient or her doctor is more qualified to make that call than a panel of experts. But we already allow drug trials - those are just measured. And if there are no other treatments, the FDA has had a compassionate use protocol for a long time to let people attempt anything over nothing.
I was prescribed a very expensive new drug that I couldn’t tolerate. Eliquis, Xarelto.
Medical office went to absurd lengths to keep me on it rather then switching to a cheaper alternative. Too multiple ER visits to get them to switch.
Kept calling me a liar for saying it had side effects.
They probably didn't even make a lot of money. Although they paid $18.3 million to doctors in 2018, only nine doctors got over $100k.
Are you in the US? By law, there has been a public database of all pharama dollars to doctors for a bit over a decade. It covers lunches and consulting fees and such. For 2018, ProPublica has a searchable database. Here's Xarelto's results.
Edit: I just realized I forgot to paste in the link. I hope I edit this before you see it: https://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/products/16510
Disclaimer: not familiar with US medical industry or incentives schemes for docs
-- Many panels of experts in Feb 2020.