Biotech Values

[ilpapa]

LONG article on drug costs in the FT, with a focus on GILD
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/7e3571da-b08c-11e4-92b6-00144feab7de.html#axzz3RNYTCbxX
Excerpts - sorry, hard to summarize:



.... Gilead has become the symbol of out-of-control drug prices in the US. A 12-week treatment costs $94,500, or $1,125 a pill, attracting unwanted attention from politicians and doctors, who identify the group as one of the most hated companies in pharmaceuticals.

Peter Bach, a doctor and director at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, reflects the views of many in his profession when he accuses it of “corrupting behaviour”.

<snip>The number of people with hepatitis C is huge, with more than 3m infected in the US alone. As soon as Gilead launched its new drugs, medical professionals warned that they risked busting the system. But the return for Gilead’s investors has been huge, as demonstrated by the company’s 2014 profits, which more than tripled to $13.3bn.<snip>

Steve Miller, chief medical officer at Express Scripts, the largest of the pharmacy benefits managers which negotiate with drug companies, has had Gilead in his sights for more than a year after it refused to offer meaningful discounts.

A self-styled scourge of high drug costs, he set out to engineer a price war as soon as AbbVie launched its rival Vikera drug in December. Dr Miller agreed to treat Express Scripts patients exclusively with Vikera in exchange for a hefty, but undisclosed, discount. The market reaction was swift: investors wiped more than $20bn off Gilead’s market value in a single day.

Etc, etc.