Posted by Michael Wonder on 30 Nov 2017
Incoming Novartis CEO on 475,000 dollar cancer therapy: 'no question that the list price raises eyebrows
30 November 2017 - Incoming CEO at Swiss drugmaker Novartis , Vas Narasimhan, said he isn’t interested in following the herd in drug development.
“How do you make smart contrarian bets?” Narasimhan said of his strategy for Novartis Wednesday at the Forbes Healthcare Summit in New York City. Narasimhan, who is the current chief medical officer and head of global drug development at Novartis, will take over for current CEO Joe Jimenez in February.
Novartis’ latest historic bet on cancer therapy Kymriah has made waves throughout the industry. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration in August for use on children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, it is a novel therapy called a chimeric antigen receptor T-cell, or CAR-T that genetically modifies a patient’s own white blood cells, training them to essentially hunt down and kill tumours.
