Posted by Michael Wonder on 27 Aug 2018
When medical innovation meets politics
24 August 2018 - FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb on the promise and challenges of biologic drugs, capital risk and ‘regulatory arbitrage’ of generics.
An Iowa teenager last summer found himself conscripted into a national debate over health care. The state’s largest insurer, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, was threatening to pull out of the ObamaCare market. One reason, a Wellmark executive said, was a single patient whose care cost $1 million a month.
The young man (never publicly named) has haemophilia, which prevents his blood from clotting. The standard treatment, infusions of the missing clotting factor, is expensive. In severe cases, a patient can require several infusions a day.
