Posted by Michael Wonder on 10 Sep 2019
ICER's blasted pharma pricing for years, but now drug makers are 'rolling up their sleeves' to cooperate
10 September 2019 - Sanofi and Regeneron's next-gen cholesterol drug Praluent never lived up to early expectations, and its price tag was at least partly to blame.
The cost petrified payers. Even before it—and its fellow PSCK9 med from Amgen—won FDA approval in 2015, pharmacy benefit managers rang alarms about the hundreds of billions the new PCSK9 class could cost the healthcare system.
But payers themselves weren't the only ones calling out costs after the drugs launched with stickers of more than $14,000. Self-appointed cost watchdog the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review had just started assessing new drugs, and it said the companies would need to cut their prices by two-thirds to be cost-effective.
