Are some drugs too expensive—no, they all are
[this is taken from Find It, File It, Flog It]
“Are some drugs too expensive?
In an article titled Politicians Shouldn’t Question Drug Costs But Rather Their Value. Lessons From Soliris And Sovaldi, we hear the view of John L. LaMattina, PhD, former senior vice president of Pfizer Inc. and president of Pfizer global research and development.
He comments:
It is not too surprising to see politicians now suddenly jumping on the bandwagon and expressing outrage over the cost of new drugs. Sovaldi, a drug that essentially cures hepatitis C, has been the subject of numerous news stories focused on its cost—$84,000 for a twelve week course of treatment.”
La Mattina argues that value, not cost, should be the yardstick.
In the absence of transparency on how the cost is determined, though, it is impossible to make the balance of judgment on what is fair and whether politicians are jumping onto some kind of bandwagon as opposed to asking the questions that need to be asked.”
When my editor at Wi…