Replies to post #463778 on Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

[BakedLangostino]

I agree. But unless we partner with a major pharma, we're going to have to compete with the mabs and ultimately the doctors who prescribe them and have cozy relationships with the sales reps. Call my cynical but I don't think it's as given as many here presume that once Blarcamesine is approved it will automatically become the standard of care. Follow the money. Doctors, hospitals -- they all operate on the for-profit model in the USA and more visits for infusions, MRIs, etc means more money to be made. So there will be some doctors, perhaps many, who initially push for the more dangerous and more expensive alternatives unless Anavex can find a way to level the playing field.

One way to do this is through pricing. Come in well below the cost of the current standards of care and now insurance companies balk at paying the higher rates for the mab drugs.

Insurance medical directors fight with hospitals and doctors all the time about repricing things. A hospital can admit someone for several days and the insurance medical director will argue that it was unnecessary. A lot of times the hospitals and doctors ultimately acquiesce or negotiate a lower amount because they want to be paid.

A lower price point makes for a more compelling case for insurers to force providers to prescribe Blarcamesine. The fact it's safer and more convenient is secondary to the fact that it's more profitable to do so.

[skitahoe]

The justification of the high cost of drugs isn't the cost of making them, it's the cost of developing them, and others that failed. It's the cost of all the clinical trials, and equally important the cost of developing new drugs for the future. BP's have Congress convinced that it costs billions to bring a new drug to market, yet most of the new drugs aren't developed by them, they acquire them by either purchasing companies, or rights to promising products. Most of the really innovative work is really being done in tiny biotech's and other research institutions like UCLA, and City of Hope from personal experience.

Personally I'd like an overhaul of the entire industry, starting with lower costs for product development because the FDA streamlined the process. It shouldn't take million page applications, the FDA ought to be in the field checking on promising products, with enough evidence, they should either approve right then and there, or issue an EUA permitting the sale while further support is developed for full approval. I really believe if FDA experts spoke with patients and Drs. working with the people in the companies various trials, they could find sufficient evidence to at least provide an EUA authorizing sales. If you dramatically reduce the cost of getting products to at least the EUA stage, where money is coming in, the overall price of products could come down dramatically and BP's and others would still be very profitable.

Gary