Article Image

IPFS News Link • Big Pharma

Gene Therapy Can Cure But Pharma is Addicted to Not Curing Diseases

• https://www.nextbigfuture.com, brian wang

The last fifty years has been dominated by increasingly expensive treatments that provide symptomatic relief for chronic conditions. The conditions were chronic because the medicine was not providing true cures. The new gene therapies and biotechnologies can fix the root causes of disease with a single dose. The correct genetic material is introduced into the patient's cells. The treatments can replace a lifetime of conventional costly drugs. This is a problem for Big Pharma which wants to keep a lifetime of payments from patients. Pharmacy giant Novartis has proposed pricing gene therapies installment payments instead of one time fees. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration forecasts as many as 20 cell- and gene-therapy approvals each year by 2025. The Institute for Clinical Economic Review has made the case that Novartis's Zolgensma (a treatment for Spinal Muscular Atrophy) could be priced for as much as $1.5 million — and as little as $310,000. Novartis argues that each treatment is worth $5 million and they want to charge at least $2 million. Novartis has also proposed installment payments over five years. They would offer reimbursement if a patient dies or the treatment otherwise fails within that period. Drug-cost authorities in Britain and Canada are working with ICER to test new methods for valuing potential cures. There needs to be fair pricing with reasonable profit for the companies and fair prices for patients and the medical system. There are two charts of overall healthcare spending from HealthSystemTracker. Usually prescription drugs are about ten percent of overall medical costs.


PirateBox.info