How much a medicine can cost. Part 2.

Well, I have written already that cost of new medicines is out of reasonable numbers but it looks like we are just in the beginning of the crazy era when medicinal products will be available for only a minority of the society.

 

European officials have approved the Western world's first gene therapy drug from a small Dutch biotech company, in a milestone for the novel medical technology that fixes faulty genes.

The formal clearance from the European Commission paves the way for a launch next summer of the treatment for an ultra rare genetic disease that will cost around 1.2 million euros ($1.6 million) per patient, a new record for pricey modern medicines.

After more than 20 years of experiments and a series of disappointments, the EU approval of Glybera, which treats the genetic disorder lipoprotein lipase deficiency (LPLD), is a significant boost for the gene therapy field.

Joern Aldag, chief executive of Amsterdam-based uniQure, said more such treatments would follow and argued a high price was justified because gene therapy restored natural body function and did not just offer a short-term fix.

 

"This provides higher benefit to patients than the classical protein replacement strategy and this is why we think we should be fairly and adequately compensated," he said in a telephone interview on Friday.

And regarding the moral part of the story. It looks like we do not have any issues here, right? There are already on the market things which are not available for the majority of the population like cars, houses, jewelery etc. The same situation can be with medicinal products. If health is a critical resource – this idea has to be successfully exploited and profited – in this case by Big Pharma.