Posted by Michael Wonder on 10 Jun 2019
The $2.1 million question: what are the medical, ethical implications of the world's priciest drug?
10 June 2019 - With last month’s FDA approval, Zolgensma became the world’s most expensive medication.
Priced at $2.125 million per patient, the one-dose gene therapy is a potential life-saver for children with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).
Now, the treatment is at the center of an intensifying debate over the rising price of medications.
Industry watchdogs are outraged. They say Zolgensma is merely the latest example of unethical and monopolistic pricing strategies among drug manufacturers.
In a Bloomberg op-ed titled No Miracle Drug Should Cost $2.1 Million, Dr. Peter Bach wrote that it’s wrong for Novartis and other pharmaceutical companies to price “orphan drugs” (medications for rare diseases) at whatever the market will bear.
