Approval of $84000 new drug sovaldi shocked insurers

Source: DXY's $2014-6-384000 hepatitis C treatment program was quickly adopted, which shocked U.S health insurers They are taking measures to meet the challenges posed by this expensive drug About 30000 people have been treated with the hepatitis drug sovaldi so far, with sales reaching a record $2.3 billion in just a few months, according to pharmaceutical company Gilead technology Generally, 84 tablets are taken every 12 weeks, and more than 90% of patients can be cured completely As many as 3.2 million people in the U.S are infected with the virus, and most of them need to buy sovaldi at a cost of more than $200 billion Some insurers impose conditions on people who have access to drugs, while California and Texas have slowed or shelved treatment, and are studying what to do Insurers warn that these unforeseen costs will drive earnings down in 2014 Gilead's competitors, including Aberdeen, Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb, began to offer their new hepatitis C drugs at reduced prices this fall Insurers also said they could limit the market coverage of new cholesterol lowering drugs they are developing, including Amgen, Pfizer and regeneron, which works with Sanofi But according to the law, if a new drug can really improve the physical condition of patients, insurers cannot prevent the new drug from going on the market, and pharmaceutical companies will dominate the pricing of most drugs If there are many competing products or some generic drugs in the market about ten years later, the insurer can guide the patients not to use the new drugs, so the pharmaceutical companies will quickly reduce the price and give a large discount But insurers have never faced a drug that is very effective against a common disease, which is very expensive but quickly approved The previous record of a new drug reaching such a phenomenal state was that in 2011, incisek, a hepatitis C treatment drug produced by vertex pharmaceutical, sold 1.56 billion dollars a year And sovaldi has sold so much in a quarter Whang, vice president of reimbursement intelligence, said sovaldi was "game changer" for insurers Reimbursement intelligence is a consulting firm that specializes in helping pharmaceutical companies set prices Whang also said that the only way for insurers to respond is to control the amount of treatment used The biggest insurer lobby group publicly criticized Gilead pharmaceuticals at a meeting last week after public criticism found that such a serious event had occurred in the industry Ignagni, President of the U.S health insurance program, said, "in this case, the company is asking for an airdrop check, but you can't give anyone an airdrop check because it will collapse your family budget, the national Medicaid budget, employer costs and federal debt." Gilead believes that sovaldi's price is worth it, because it can save the expensive expenses of going to the hospital and treating liver cirrhosis or even liver failure The company did not change the price of the hepatitis C drug, but Alton, executive vice president of corporate and medical affairs at Gilead, acknowledged that the company would begin negotiations with insurers In 2013, the U.S spent a record $329 billion on drugs, two of which were driven by new drugs for cancer, HIV and hepatitis C Driven by a year-on-year increase of 1800% in hepatitis C drug costs, express scripts, the country's largest drug welfare manager, is expected to increase its efforts to invest in specialized drugs, an additional 63% increase from 2014 to 2016 A billion yuan of funds will be available to enter the market, including the cost of research, development and marketing Supporters of pharmaceutical companies say the greater progress, the more expensive support "We're the only country in the world that pays a lot to help innovate, but that's what we need, and that's what the American people expect," said Republican Senator burr of North Carolina Castellani, chairman of the lobbying team of the promising new cholesterol lowering drugs leading the pharmaceutical industry, said the new drug pricing policy should take the national position and calculate how the country should pay for expensive drugs Castellani is also the CEO of pharma Sovaldi's example shows that patients suffer too much because of the rising costs of CO payments, CO insurance and deductible drugs, Castellani told Reuters, many of which blame insurers' controls Patients have yet to support either side, which will give insurers room to act "I think the problem is with both for-profit insurers and pharmaceutical companies," said Donnelly, director of the San Francisco health care policy program, who said the system has not changed and that new, effective drugs are always expensive The next new drug is a cholesterol inhibitor called PCSK9, which helps the liver clear the "bad" LDL from the blood The drug will lead to the next price war A large number of studies have shown that the new drug can help patients who can't stand the pain or who have benefited from existing drugs PCSK9 therapy is expected to cost thousands of dollars a year, far higher than the price of other generic statins sold There are 710000 people suffering from high cholesterol in the United States, and pharmaceutical manufacturers are expected to promote the use of new drugs by 70000 to 200000 people, accounting for 30% Insurers have begun to question whether the assessment used is legal Original address: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/28/us-usa-healthcare-healthcare-insight-iduskbn0e80az20140528