{"id":5692,"date":"2021-07-29T11:45:32","date_gmt":"2021-07-29T11:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=5692"},"modified":"2021-07-29T11:45:32","modified_gmt":"2021-07-29T11:45:32","slug":"the-new-alzheimers-drug-that-could-break-medicare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=5692","title":{"rendered":"The new Alzheimer\u2019s drug that could break Medicare"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“Medicare\u2019s inability to determine the price it pays for aducanumab is a uniquely American problem compared to health systems in the rest of the developed world. Countries like Australia<\/a> and the United Kingdom<\/a> have independent boards that evaluate a new drug\u2019s effectiveness and set a price based on that estimated value. The US pharma industry says the US system is important for encouraging innovation, and companies have made amazing breakthroughs, such as the hepatitis-C drugs<\/a> that effectively cure that disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, as the standards for approving have sometimes seemed to slip in recent years, the chances of the FDA approving very expensive drugs with only marginal benefits have risen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t require prices to reflect the value of treatment, period,\u201d Dusetzina said. \u201cCompanies can price their drugs as high as they want. Companies can also get drugs approved with little evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Biogen is planning to charge $56,000 annually for aducanumab. ICER, which evaluates the estimated value of new drugs, estimates<\/a>, based on the clinical evidence, that it\u2019s worth more like $8,000; perhaps as little as $2,500 or as much as $23,100. Regardless, the price announced after Biogen secured FDA approval \u201cfar exceeds even this optimistic scenario,\u201d ICER concluded.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy-and-politics\/22524608\/new-alzheimers-drug-cost-fda-approval-biogen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Medicare\u2019s inability to determine the price it pays for aducanumab is a uniquely American problem compared to health systems in the rest of the developed world. Countries like Australia and the United Kingdom have independent boards that evaluate a new drug\u2019s effectiveness and set a price based on that estimated value. The US pharma industry says the US system is important for encouraging innovation, and companies have made amazing breakthroughs, such as the hepatitis-C drugs that effectively cure that disease.<\/p>\n

But, as the standards for approving have sometimes seemed to slip in recent years, the chances of the FDA approving very expensive drugs with only marginal benefits have risen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t require prices to reflect the value of treatment, period,\u201d Dusetzina said. \u201cCompanies can price their drugs as high as they want. Companies can also get drugs approved with little evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Biogen is planning to charge $56,000 annually for aducanumab. ICER, which evaluates the estimated value of new drugs, estimates, based on the clinical evidence, that it\u2019s worth more like $8,000; perhaps as little as $2,500 or as much as $23,100. Regardless, the price announced after Biogen secured FDA approval \u201cfar exceeds even this optimistic scenario,\u201d ICER concluded.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[439,70,378,384,75],"class_list":["post-5692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-drugs","tag-medical-prices","tag-medicare","tag-price","tag-price-of-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5692"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5693,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5692\/revisions\/5693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}