New
Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs Will Test the Future Healthcare System! (Another
link is here).
And now the drug in question is extremely expensive antibody! Why not? Small
molecules are cheap and not sexy any more.
“We are now in a world where generic
statins exist. Over the coming months,
the cost of therapy for even high doses of atorvastatin (the active ingredient
of Lipitor) might be as low as $1 per day.
Antibodies, on the other hand, are expensive with the majority costing
tens of thousands of dollars per year. Insurance
companies and other payers will undoubtedly look at this situation not
necessarily with regard to the degree of LDL lowering provided by these
compounds but rather with regard to cost.
Why reimburse the costs for a PCSK-9 antibody at $20,000 per year when a
generic statin at $400 per year is almost as effective? “
Antibodies
(proteins) have a lot of advantages from Big Pharma point of view:
1. Antibodies are complicated
structures and it gives an impression of high intellectual content of the
medicine.
2. Antibodies are complicated and the
higher price is motivated
And who
cares that the new drug is injectable and less practical compared to usual statins?
Another
day, another Dirty
Swan…
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