Vertex’s Cystic-Fibrosis Drug Faces Big Test
Vertex, based in Boston, Mass., already has a hit cystic-fibrosis drug in Kalydeco, which has a wholesale annual per-patient price of $311,000 in the U.S., and had $464 million in global sales last year. But Kalydeco treats a relatively rare type of cystic fibrosis, with a market of only 2,000 patients in the U.S. Orkambi, which combines Kalydeco with another compound, could be approved for 8,500 patients, or 28% of the 30,000 people in the U.S. with the disease.
. Express Scripts Holding Co. ESRX +2,22% , the largest U.S. pharmacy benefits manager, says that price will overwhelm employer health plans
Gotta love how they feign concern. lol Everyone knows that tax payers front the bill. Every single time. Insurance companies & healthcare bill from govt., who bills from tax payers. If this were really a problem, health insurance stocks would not be at 52-week highs every year. Tens of billions of tax payer dollars wasted each year keeping people with these rare diseases alive who otherwise provide little to no economic value. I am bullish on healthcare because I don’t see any reason for this scam to stop. Policy makers seem to have this view that every life, no matter what the cost, is worth saving. So go healthcare! Go CURE, IBB, and so on. In buying healthcare stocks there is money to be made for average investors, even if these gains are rooted in wasteful policy.
Liberals, who claim to believe in evolution, believe in survival of the un-fittest. They believe in wasting resources on individuals who are an economic drain, when that $300k a year could be better spent on people who are a net-positive. In playing devil’s advocate, I suppose this Cystic-Fibrosis drug, if successful, may lead to cheaper drugs down the road, but since Cystic-Fibrosis is so rare it would be classified as an orphan drug, which are always, by definition, expensive.
This may seem kinda insensitive and harsh, but with healthcare spending showing no sign of slowing, the question is is every life worth saving?