Novartis's $475,000 Price on Cancer Therapy Meets Resistance
- Drug heralds new, costly class of curative treatments
- “We need a new payment model,” Express Scripts official says
Novartis Cancer Drug Is Approved With $475,000 Price Tag
The $475,000 price tag on Novartis AG’s latest breakthrough cancer therapy came under fire from one of the biggest managers of drug costs in the U.S., underscoring the challenges the Swiss drugmaker will face in promoting the potential blockbuster.
The cost of the leukemia treatment, called Kymriah, is “dramatically higher” than other such complex treatments, and the health-care system isn’t ready to pay for it, Steve Miller, chief medical officer at Express Scripts Holding Co., said Thursday in a blog post on his company’s website. Gene therapies like Novartis’s are targeted at a small number of patients and typically used just once, meaning that drug companies have limited chances to recoup their investment.