As a lay person, its hard not to see the word "breakthrough" as essentially meaningless as its so overused. Insulin, and the polio vaccine I can see in that category... But there have been so many drugs like Avastin (which sadly I had personal experience with through my wife's cancer, which were supposed to be breakthroughs.. miracles etc... Yet, when the dust settled and more data beyond the initial company reported data came to light, it extended life expectancy by very little time.... Our oncologist was pretty good about holding expectations in check. But if we went by the company's claims, we would have been sadly disappointed through false hope, as well as the VAST majority of people who took Avastin. Or Erbitux was another. It was offered to my wife as an option... The pharma gloss used all sorts of superlatives, yet for her cancer, it would have given her an extra few weeks based on some of the studies we were able to dig up. For the kind of money spent for (in some cases) really shitty quality of life, $100k might be better spent on improved hospice care and pain control for the person.