FDA clears Vertex’s new treatment for cystic fibrosis (at $259K a year!)

[question everything]

Last edited Sat Jul 4, 2015, 12:25 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: Boston Globe

Edited to correct the sum: $259K, not $295 as originally posted. Yea, what a difference

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. won US regulatory approval Thursday for a medicine that eventually could treat roughly half of the estimated 30,000 Americans who suffer from cystic fibrosis, the life-threatening lung disease.

Pricing the two-drug therapy called Orkambi at $259,000 per patient annually, the company said it plans to begin shipping the treatment to specialty pharmacies within days.

(snip)

Orkambi is expected to generate billions in annual sales and help Vertex become consistently profitable. The company, which moved from Cambridge to a new $800 million campus on Boston’s Fan Pier last year, has become one of the state’s largest biotechs, with a market value of more than $30 billion — despite having lost money in all but one of its 26 years. The new drug regimen is expected to help provide more than $53 million for a dozen Vertex senior executives who were granted one-time bonuses that would be paid at the end of 2017 at the earliest if the company is profitable for the prior four quarters.

(snip)

Patients with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that causes severe damage to the lungs and digestive system, have had few treatment alternatives. Drugs currently on the market alleviate symptoms, such as lung infections and the buildup of mucus, but not the underlying genetic cause of the disease. Orkambi, while not curing patients, counteracts damage caused by the disease, enabling patients to breath more easily and stay out of the hospital.


Read more: https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/07/02/fda-approves-vertex-cystic-fibrosis-medicine/jzn9eCDenCq4rEI671mDOM/story.html#

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Who is going to pay for this? Insurance companies? If not, then there is no treatment, effectively.

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Sure, you can get it - but only at Elysium. n/t

[CountAllVotes]

2. Gee, what a bargain!

all over you greedy drug companies!

[jmowreader]

3. What's in this shit? An alloy of platinum, gold and plutonium?

[AngryDem001]

4. Unobtanium.

[jmowreader]

5. With a little adamantium mixed in for good measure

"Side effects may include hyper-enhanced immune system response, mutton-chop sideburns and unexplained retractable claws growing out the back of the hands in patients who come from Canada. If you experience any of these conditions, cease taking this medication and apply for a job as a superhero."

[Recursion]

13. 26 years of previous attempts that failed? (nt)

[christx30]

6. How much time and money did

Vertex spend developing this treatment?

[question everything]

7. I don't think that it matters

In our capitalistic society, market rules.

Still interesting, I found it in the WSJ story:

On a conference call Thursday with Wall Street analysts, company officials estimated that about 35% to 40% of the patients who are candidates for Orkambi will be on Medicaid, the government program for lower-income people.

Thus, one hopes that the states would unite to pressure these bandits.

[Turin_C3PO]

8. I have cystic fibrosis.

I dearly hope and pray that somehow there will be assistance programs for this treatment because it may essentially stall cf disease progression. I think insurance companies will cover it but it may take a year or two. The price is absolutely ridiculous, bordering on criminal.

[Sunlei]

10. CF must be a very difficult disease to live with. Insurance will cover drug costs. Thank God for ACA

IMO, drug corps take advantage of our Gov. subsidy money and enjoy mega profits by price gouging.

Has the FDA approved stem cell treatments for Cystic Fibrosis?

currently one clinic treating CF, and other progressive diseases like Parkinson's, dementia, heart disease and others, have blood drawn in Florida, sent to Israel for collecting adult stem cells and then stem cells sent to Dominican Republic for the transfusion treatment.

Persons with severe Cystic Fibrosis who have improved significantly from stem cell treatment are pictured at the "Annual Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Gala in Fort Lauderdale" in December 2011 with Jeb Bush.

Bush the president, was the person who set back Americas stem cell research decades.

Here is the picture of red faced, party boy Jeb Bush, and info from one of the clinics that does stem cell treatments. http://regenocyte.com/cystic-fibrosis.html

[Sunlei]

11. never mind about FDA question. I see on the Jeb Bush picture page very bottom, FDA did not approve.

Must be another Florida medical clinic only for the extremely wealthy to use or invest in.

[Sunlei]

9. right now. Stock price: VRTX (NASDAQ) $131.26 +5.07 (+4.02%)

[McCamy Taylor]

12. A quarter million dollars a year. Ouch. I assume Medicaid will bargain this down a bit.

But what about CF sufferers who are over 18 and who live in states that did not expand Medicaid? Will their insurance pay this? Will the county medical hospital where they get their care pay this? Or, do all folks with CF qualify for government insurance?