When it comes to breakthrough therapy , sometimes it seems as though each fresh potentially lifetime - saving drug make out with a price ticket more expensive than the last . Novartis ’ Kymriah , which became the first to win FDA approval for a innovational new character of cancer treatment call off machine - thyroxin last year , price its therapy at $ 475,000 . A gene therapy from Spark Therepeutics sanction in December to treat a rare , inherited form of blindness became the expensive practice of medicine in the U.S. whenit was priced at $ 850,000 .
Such respectable price shred have prompt outcries from patients and patient exponent . Drug society , though , counter that the high price is necessary for them to turn a net on drugs that cost millions to evolve and are signify to only be mete out one time . ( Muriel Spark has also delineate a plan to helpease the cost for patients . )
But how much do these therapies really have to be in society for party to turn a lucre ? Drug - pricing crusaderDavid Mitchellcrunched some numbers and concluded that at least in the subject of Novartis ’ leukemia therapy , Kymriah , the damage pointcould stand to be a lot lowerand still turn a gracious profit . Hundreds of thousands of dollar bill lower , at $ 160,o00 .
“ Novartis took a drug developed with substantial investment from U.S. taxpayers and is on course to make substantially more than its already healthy performance . We think Novartis could cover both its historic margin and keep inquiry and development expenditure at a retail price of $ 160,000 , ” Mitchell and colleagues write in a blog position for HealthAffairs.org . ( Details on their modelingare here . )
Over at Forbes , Novartis disputed that mathematics , saying that assumptions Mitchell had made about thing like manufacturing toll were off .
But Mitchell also anticipate for more transparency , arguing that when taxpayer - funded enquiry helped lead to the discovery of a drug , part of the conversation needs to be how much a company should be able to gain .
With more breakthrough therapies on the celestial horizon , it seems unbelievable that this debate is going anywhere any sentence soon .
Gene therapyGeneticsScience
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