Oregon is considering restricting Medicaid reimbursement for hepatitis C drug Sovaldi treatments because of the predatory pricing established by Gilead Pharmaceuticals which puts the price of a single pill at $1,000 or about $84,000 for a patient on a standard, 12-week treatment schedule.
The state can't afford to treat every patient given the way Gilead has priced its treatment. The thought in Oregon is to only treat the sickest with the drug and wait for other competitors to offer alternatives and drive the price down through competition.
Ron Wyden is investigating the pricing of the drug as well as payments to research studies lauding the drugs' effectiveness, which OHSU found to be seriously biased and flawed. That raises the question of whether or not Gilead gamed the research process to justify their high price.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are moderated for relevance and civility. Spam is discarded.