How to pay for gene therapy, Vol. XVI
The question of how to deal with a life-changing medicine that happens to cost in excess of $1 million has gone from theory to practice over the past year or so, thanks to the arrival of gene therapies for rare disease. And Cigna, the largest pharmacy benefit manager in the U.S., says it has a solution.
Through a program called Embarc, Cigna is offering employers and health plans a deal: Pay a monthly fee that could be less than $1 per covered patient, and the company will pick up the entire cost of a gene therapy.
That sounds more than reasonable considering that Novartis’s Zolgensma costs $2.1 million, and the disease it treats, spinal muscular atrophy, is rare. However, as Jeremy Schafer of Precision for Value writes in STAT, whether Embarc’s offer works out as a bargain will depend on who’s paying.
Read more.
Through a program called Embarc, Cigna is offering employers and health plans a deal: Pay a monthly fee that could be less than $1 per covered patient, and the company will pick up the entire cost of a gene therapy.
That sounds more than reasonable considering that Novartis’s Zolgensma costs $2.1 million, and the disease it treats, spinal muscular atrophy, is rare. However, as Jeremy Schafer of Precision for Value writes in STAT, whether Embarc’s offer works out as a bargain will depend on who’s paying.
Read more.
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