Gilead Executive Says Pharmacy Benefit Managers Keep Prices High
- Lower prices would prompt PBMs to ‘rip up our contract’
- Drugmakers pointing to role of middlemen as prices assailed
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Gilead Sciences Inc.’s hepatitis C cure set off a firestorm of criticism over high drug prices in 2014 that hasn’t let up since. Now an executive says the company can’t cut the product’s price because middlemen who manage drug benefits would refuse to cover it.
“If we just lowered the cost of Sovaldi from $85,000 to $50,000, every payer would rip up our contract,” said Jim Meyers, executive vice president of worldwide commercial operations, in an interview with Bloomberg News.