What’s Novartis going to charge for its gene therapy?

When Novartis said its one-time gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy would be “cost-effective” at a price of $4 million or more, everyone got mad and one person invoked the mafia.

Novartis then went to great lengths to make clear that it wasn’t saying it would charge $4 million, just that its gene therapy works well enough to justify such a cost, were the company so inclined. The whole thing began to feel like a sandbagging exercise that would allow Novartis to proclaim the eventual price, whatever it is, as a comparative bargain, and then everyone sort of moved on.

Anyway, the FDA is now weighing an accelerated approval for that gene therapy, which means we could be just months away from learning how much Novartis actually will charge. What do you think? The price will be ________.

less than $1 million
between $1 million and $2 million
more than $2 million