| Title | Medical Patents and Prices | |
| Date | Thursday October 30 2014, @03:50AM | |
| Author | LaminatorX | |
| Topic | ||
| from the twice-damned dept. | ||
Pacific Standard is running a story that raises the issue of medical costs compared to the diseases they cure.
In the article they point out that a cure for Hepatitis C (HepC) with a new battery of drugs can be had in as little as 12 weeks for a lifetime cure.
For the first time, highly effective regimens were available without interferon. Treatment courses that used to last nearly a year have now been reduced to just 12 weeks in most cases. Side effects are so low that some patients who took these medications in research studies thought they were being given a placebo. Cure rates are now in the 90 to 95 percent range—not suppression, not control, not maintenance, but the cure of hepatitis C. This is a watershed moment for the over three million Americans, and many more millions abroad, who are infected.
The article explains that prior treatments could take almost a year, and had a cure rate hovering around 50%. Because of this, insurance companies usually refused to pay for the older drugs until the HepC became debilitating, and eventually degenerated into cirrhosis or cancer.
(About 80% of those exposed to the HepC virus develop a chronic infection, and experience minimal or no symptoms during the initial few decades of the infection).
Insurance companies will pay $11,000/month for cancer treatments, even for terminal patients, but balked at the price for the prior HepC treatments: the bill was around $70,000 for the 50% cure rate.
The new treatments, with 90-95% effectiveness could cost $84,000 per patient for the 12 week course.
(Note, that the actual cost study (pdf) quotes a range of $88,000 to $175,000, but PSmag often chooses their citations for effect rather than accuracy. Most patients would not require more than a single course.).
Since most patients are asymptomatic for decades, the study suggests, and the article asks, if the treatment cost is justifiable (in insurance company think), as opposed to waiting and treating the resultant cirrhosis or cancer.
Not addressed by either the study or the article is why does this course of pills (1 per day for 84 days) cost $1000 per pill. What percentage of that amount is recovery of legitimate developmental expenses and actual production costs? What percent is profit?
Also not addressed is how much does a 17-year patent window encourage this level of pricing. Could longer patent protection be (contractually) traded for cheaper pricing? Would shorter patent protection allow recovery of developmental costs? How fast will that price drop when competitors have their products approved?
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