Gilead Pharmaceuticals has announced that the cost of getting what has become the most effective treatment available, will be $3120 for those of us with insurance. Which means if you have not met your annual deductible, it will be a hardship. If you are uninsured it will break you or you will die.
I wonder how this shakes out in the end? This is a medication costs $10 to produce…and going for $500 plus per vial.
I think the vast majority of Americans are sick of the exuberant drug prices in the U.S. I did like when I heard than Johnson and Johnson who is also working on a covid-19 vaccine has already set the price at $10 a dose.
The cost to bring a new drug to market is over 2 billion dollars and the continued liability risks require the companies amass huge fortunes to set aside in case they get sued.
Until you address those two realities you’re going to have to live with the high cost of drugs.
The vaccine manufacturers have been granted waivers that have cut their development costs by over 90% along with liability waivers.
Gilead has not.
Personally I think all drugs and vaccines that pass FDA approval be waivered period against liability unless it can be shown they committed fraud during the approval process by submitting false data.
At a minimum a reasonable maximum should be set for pharmaceutical liability awards.
They already do this, it is called the National Vaccine Injury Compensation program, or “Vaccine Court”. You cannot sue a vaccine maker in state or local courts, you have to do it through this Federal Court with no jury.
Very efficient, higher success rate than tort style claims and you can often get your legal fees paid off even if you lose. I wish most medical claims were handled like this, it is way faster and fairer.
10 bucks? Is that the recurring cost? What about the non-recurring cost associated with the development and the cost of buying and maintaining the infrastructure to produce the drug? That needs to be paid. And - as it has been mentioned- the cost of protection from rabid lawyers with their lawsuits.
Americans get raped by big pharma because other countries put in price controls to try and ensure their citizens can have access to much needed medication. Not so much here.
But with that said there is no way that someone without health insurance or the funds to spend $3,120 on a vaccine are going to be denied access to it. We already saw the federal mandate that testing had to be covered 100% by all health insurance plans self-funded or fully insured so regardless. CMS is reimbursing up to $100 to providers and through private insurance, the carriers are reimbursing around $60. But yes there are providers who do not accept insurance that are charging much more than $100 for a test and those providers should be named and shamed.
Specific to COVID-19 any pharma company that tries to put profits before people are going to find their share price plummeting fast.
I have no concerns that when (if) a vaccine is created everyone who wants it will at some point get it.
The Production cost is 10 dollars a vial…they have been making it for years and years already. It is pretty fixed…unless you are talking about ramping up for increased production. then I don’t know.