Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

More on triaging of HCV patients (cover story in today’s Boston Globe):

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/05/31/costly-new-hepatitis-treatments-curing-patients-but-straining-health-care-system-finances/SmBE9NoUESxjfgphfqvXKL/story.html

[Massachusetts] state government and insurance industry leaders say patients whose doctors prescribe Sovaldi will be able to get it eventually. But some patients who have been told to wait say they’re the victim of health care rationing…

Insurers in Massachusetts don’t call it rationing [LOL]. But they say they will have to adopt a “gated” approach to reimbursing doctors and hospitals for the high cost of the drug if they want to stay in business.

…[Sovaldi] contributed to a first-quarter financial loss at Partners HealthCare, the giant Boston system that runs Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals and recently bought Neighborhood Health Plan, a Medicaid-contracted insurer.

An operating loss at Partners Healthcare (the Harvard-affiliated hospital chain) was unheard of until now.

Insurers, as well as patients responsible for expensive Sovaldi copayments, are eagerly awaiting the arrival of competing new-generation hepatitis C treatments they hope will work as well as Sovaldi at lower cost.

So are investors!