Xconomy: Making the Price Right: Ideas To Change Drug Costs Gain Momentum
Summary
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ALNY) CEO John Maraganore told Xconomy in January that as his company progresses its most advanced drug, patisiran, through the clinic he will talk publicly about pricing strategy.But the company in late January announced its first two pay-for-performance deals, later revealed to be with Cigna and Aetna, which start with a “fairly modest” rebate to the list price that goes up or down based on the reductions in hospitalizations.But those inclined to speculate might start with ICER’s final report on Entresto in December, in which it recommended that the list price of $4,560 a year should be cut 9 percent, to $4,168, “to prevent an excessive cost burden on the health care system.”) Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) of Thousand Oaks, CA, also struck a recent pay-for-performance deal with the health system Harvard Pilgrim after the launch of evolocumab (Repatha), which blocks a protein called PCSK9 and helps patients flush excess cholesterol out of their blood streams.Everyone, including doctors wondering how aggressively to prescribe the PCSK9 drugs, is waiting for massive “outcomes” studies with tens of thousands of patients to show not just that they lower cholesterol but that they actually make people healthier and save lives.The first test could come next year, when Philadelphia’s Spark Therapeutics (NASDAQ: ONCE) hopes to gain approval for a gene therapy to cure rare forms of genetic blindness.