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Barry Werth who wrote the swashbuckling book about the creation of Vertex (sequel out in February) has an excellent piece (also highlighted by @Chemjobber) in the MIT Technology Review about the cost of new drugs. He asks a question which is usually the first question that any pharmaceutical scientist who tells a layperson what he/she does for a living encounters: Why do drugs cost so much? (The next question is usually "Why do drugs have so many side-effects?")
Werth compares two drugs to illustrate the strange world of drug pricing and the moral dilemma that riddles that world: Vertex's cystic fibrosis drug Kalydeco and Regeneron/Sanofi's cancer drug Zaltrap. Here's the problem: Kalydeco is a breakthrough medicine which has breathed completely new life into the treatment of a disease for which no effective therapies existed before. It costs about $300K a year. Zaltrap increases the median lifespan of patients with advanced colorectal cancer by 1.5 months. And it costs $11K a month. Now is it surprising why people are so critical of the pharmaceutical industry? I would be too, if I was constantly bombarded by news of "breakthroughs" like Zaltrap.
The reason why this whole thing seems so absurd is that the actual price of a drug often sounds almost completely arbitrary. As Werth notes, Zaltrap caused an outrage among patients and physicians, leading a group led by doctors from Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital to protest the price of the drug in an unprecedented NYT Op-Ed. In response Sanofi cut the price of the drug by half through rebates and other schemes. If a drug company can reduce the price of a medication by 50% just like that without major catastrophe, it really makes you ask what the "true" price of the drug is.
In any case, the whole thing is definitely worth a read, especially in an age where drugs are paradoxically going to start becoming more effective - even as they are targeted toward select, small patient subpopulations - and simultaneously more expensive.
Werth compares two drugs to illustrate the strange world of drug pricing and the moral dilemma that riddles that world: Vertex's cystic fibrosis drug Kalydeco and Regeneron/Sanofi's cancer drug Zaltrap. Here's the problem: Kalydeco is a breakthrough medicine which has breathed completely new life into the treatment of a disease for which no effective therapies existed before. It costs about $300K a year. Zaltrap increases the median lifespan of patients with advanced colorectal cancer by 1.5 months. And it costs $11K a month. Now is it surprising why people are so critical of the pharmaceutical industry? I would be too, if I was constantly bombarded by news of "breakthroughs" like Zaltrap.
The reason why this whole thing seems so absurd is that the actual price of a drug often sounds almost completely arbitrary. As Werth notes, Zaltrap caused an outrage among patients and physicians, leading a group led by doctors from Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital to protest the price of the drug in an unprecedented NYT Op-Ed. In response Sanofi cut the price of the drug by half through rebates and other schemes. If a drug company can reduce the price of a medication by 50% just like that without major catastrophe, it really makes you ask what the "true" price of the drug is.
In any case, the whole thing is definitely worth a read, especially in an age where drugs are paradoxically going to start becoming more effective - even as they are targeted toward select, small patient subpopulations - and simultaneously more expensive.
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