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Monday, May 27th, 2019

No Miracle Drug Should Cost $2.1 Million

Author:     May 24, 2019, 12:10 PM PDT
Source:     Bloomberg
Publication Date:     Peter B. Bach, MD
 Link: No Miracle Drug Should Cost $2.1 Million
Stephan:   The pharmaceutical industry in the United States behaves exactly like every two-bit drug dealer standing on a street corner selling nickel bags. Get your users in a position where they have to have whatever drug you are selling then charge as much as you can. But even that vulgar image is not strong enough, evil enough. Personally, I think a significant percentage of the executives in the drug business should be in prison, for crimes against humanity. And they should be joined by a number of politicians both Republicans and Democrats who, in truth, are little more corrupt street hustlers themselves. Read this article and imagine how you would feel if you and your partner had a newborn who could only be kept alive by a $2.1 million a patient drug.  

Zolgensma
Credit: Wall Street Journal

The day, long anticipated, when America’s system of voluntary drug pricing could break down has now arrived. Novartis has announced it will charge $2.1 million for Zolgensma, a gene therapy for infants with lethal spinal muscular atrophy. (emphasis added)

The seeds of this extraordinary price were sewn in 1983, when Congress passed the Orphan Drug Act, a well-meaning law designed to encourage research into rare diseases. It offered drug makers tax breaks and other incentives for such work, rapid review by the Food and Drug Administration, a lower bar for market approval, and longer protection from competition.

The law has worked so well that orphan drug research increasingly crowds out investigations into drugs for such common illnesses as heart disease and diabetes.

That’s not to say orphan drugs aren’t at times miraculous. Zolgensma, by augmenting defective DNA, changed the course of neuromuscular decline in 15 babies, enabling them to achieve developmental milestones. Nor is it to suggest that orphan diseases don’t deserve […]

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2 Comments

  1. Rev. Dean on Monday, May 27, 2019 at 6:32 am

    his shows why we need a single-payer system like Bernie Sanders and many others suggest.

  2. Rev. Dean on Monday, May 27, 2019 at 6:40 am

    t is not a miracle if it costs so much that no one can afford it.