Posted by Michael Wonder on 12 Feb 2019
Cystic fibrosis scandal: fury over US firm's 'refusal' to set price for life-saving drugs
11 February 2019 - A US drugs firm is "playing with people's lives" by refusing to do a deal over Orkambi, a life-saving drug for cystic fibrosis sufferers, the Shadow Health Secretary warned yesterday.
Meanwhile, a Daily Express-backed petition urging the NHS and drugs giant Vertex - headed by chairman Jeffrey Leiden - to thrash out an arrangement on the drug has topped 53,000 signatures. Orkambi, which is market-priced at £104,000 per person, per year, "stops the clock" in deterioration from the genetic disease - which affects lungs and other organs - of 50 per cent of UK patients.
It has now emerged that a rebuffed £500 million NHS England deal last year was not just for Orkambi - but all the firm's current and future cystic fibrosis drugs for the next five years.
