Forbes
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 leukemia, 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 tumors.
“We’re entering a new frontier in medical innovation with the ability to reprogram a patient’s own cells to attack a deadly cancer,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement in August when Kymriah was approved. “New technologies such as gene and cell therapies hold out the potential to transform medicine and create an inflection point in our ability to treat and even cure many intractable illnesses.”
While its implications are vast, the therapy does not come cheap. It’s list price is $475,000 per patient. “There’s no question that the list price raises eyebrows,” Narasimhan said. “We need to price our drugs at a cost-effective level that is acceptable for society,” he expanded. “[Value-based pricing model] is something we have to grapple with. We need to come up with different models for different medicines.”
FORBES reported in October that Novartis has said it's offering insurance companies a value-based pricing structure where it only pays for patients who enter remission within three months.
Johnny Wolf
Austin Schuetz, one of the first patients to benefit from Novartis' CAR-T treatment, on stage at the Forbes Healthcare Summit with Leukemia & Lymphoma Society president and CEO Louis DeGennaro.
One of the earliest beneficiaries of this therapy was 10-year-old Austin Schuetz. Shortly before his 3rd birthday he and his parents were given a devastating diagnosis, acute lymphoblastic lymphoma. Over the next few years of his treatment, which included chemotherapy, radiation and a bone marrow transplant, he continued to have relapses until his parents, Kimberly and Jeffrey Schuetz, learned of Novartis' phase one clinical trial for Kymriah. Austin was eligible and he enrolled soon after in 2013.
“We would just kind of wait in the wings, and hope was all we had,” Kimberly Schuetz said at the Summit. Today, Austin, who joined his parents on stage at the Summit, is healthy thanks to the therapy.
“That’s what made me want to join the industry and certainly what motivates me every day,” Narasimhan said. “If we can solve puzzles that biology gives us and change patients lives.”
