The pricing of new medicines is inevitably inscrutable to the consumer and the doctor, even when the number of those who suffer from a disease are large in number.    My spouse had an asymptomatic  hepatitis C infection that she acquired as a medical tech many years prior.  Although asymptomatic, it hung for years like a sword of Damocles over her health as we aged. We followed the exciting news of the new drug Harvoni that had a very high cure rate for her strain as it went from experimental to available for over $100k and, after a couple years had gone down to $50k. The company kept refusing coverage because, although her enzymes her sky high, she wasn’t very sick. We were about to give up and remortgage our house to get the $18k current cost when we got an offer from the drug company that, because our insurance was refusing coverage, would provide her a full course for about $80. We have never been able to figure that one out.

The pricing of new medicines is inevitably inscrutable to the consumer and the doctor, even when the number of those who suffer from a disease are large in number.    My spouse had an asymptomatic  hepatitis C infection that she acquired as a medical tech many years prior.  Although asymptomatic, it hung for years like a sword of Damocles over her health as we aged. We followed the exciting news of the new drug Harvoni that had a very high cure rate for her strain as it went from experimental to available for over $100k and, after a couple years had gone down to $50k. The company kept refusing coverage because, although her enzymes her sky high, she wasn’t very sick. We were about to give up and remortgage our house to get the $18k current cost when we got an offer from the drug company that, because our insurance was refusing coverage, would provide her a full course for about $80. We have never been able to figure that one out.

user
yes
assistant