dr. saltz's battle against the cost of cancer drugs started in 2012 when the f.d.a. altrap for treating advanced colon cancer. saltz compared the clinical trial results of zaltrap to those of another drug already on the market, avastin. he says both target the same patient population, work essentially in the same way and, when given as part of chemotherapy, deliver the identical result, extending median survival by 1.4 months, or 42 days. >> saltz: they looked to be about the same. to me, it looked like a coke and pepsi sort of thing. >> stahl: then saltz, as head of the hospital's pharmacy committee, discovered how much it would cost-- roughly $11,000 per month, more than twice that of avastin. so $5,000 versus $11,000, that's quite a jump. did it have fewer side effects? was it less toxic? >> saltz: no. >> stahl: did it have something that would have explained the... this double price? >> saltz: if anything, it looked like there might be a little more toxicity in the zaltrap study. >> stahl: he contacted dr. peter bach, sloan-kettering's in-house expert on cancer dr