viernes, 15 de noviembre de 2019

To one patient group, a $500 discount doesn’t amount to competition

The Readout
Damian Garde

To one patient group, a $500 discount doesn’t amount to competition

Last month, when Biogen won FDA approval for a new multiple sclerosis treatment, it proudly disclosed the list price as $88,000 per year, making it the cheapest oral treatment by $500. But that, according to a new statement from the National MS Society, is nothing to celebrate.

As STAT’s Ed Silverman reports, the patient group said Biogen’s decision “does not show the commitment to affordable access that we had hoped.” That’s because the group thinks Novartis’s Mayzent, the drug Biogen is undercutting, is overpriced in its own right.

When drug companies get called out, they can say their medicine is priced in line with the broader market, creating a system in which no one is incentivized to meaningfully compete on price. And that makes $500 discounts pretty underwhelming, according to the National MS Society.

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