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Nicolas Bagley, quoting Rachel E. Sachs (Academic Fellow)
The Incidental Economist Blog
January 28, 2016

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From the article:

[...] Talk about sending the wrong signals about what sorts of drugs we value most. As Rachel Sachs wrote in an email:

In my view, Sovaldi is a drug that shouldn’t exist given the normal financial incentives of drug companies. It’s a drug that 1) not just treats, but cures a disease that’s 2) prevalent disproportionately among people of low socioeconomic status, 3) particularly including marginalized groups like IV drug users and people in prison. I think it’s unfair that companies charge $250,000 a year for drugs that patients with rare diseases will take for the rest of their lives. But I also think it’s unfair how aggressively the media, the public, and lawmakers have gone after Gilead for their giving Sovaldi a list price of $84,000. We should be praising Gilead, a company who got its start developing HIV/AIDS drugs and has developed some of the best global access policies for its medicines of any company out there, not criticizing it. If we criticize Gilead for setting a high price for Sovaldi, we have to criticize other companies even more for not engaging in research in these fields to begin with. And I don’t see us doing that. [...]

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Tags

bioethics   biotechnology   health care finance   health care reform   health law policy   pharmaceuticals   rachel sachs   regulation