Money-Grubbing Drug Companies!
I thought that might get your attention...since this is the industry that I work in, I should talk more about it, but don't...so, the Scientific Activist has beaten me to the punch, in commenting on an NYT article regarding a Genentech product...On 15 February, The New York Times published a detailed account in its business section on the exorbitant prices some pharmaceutical companies are willing to charge for their therapies. The report focused on Avastin, a drug produced by Genentech for treatment of colon cancer. The drug is now being prescribed for breast and lung cancer, but a year of Avastin treatment for these conditions can cost $100,000. Ouch.
Surely this steep price tag must mean that Avastin is just a really expensive drug to produce, or maybe Genentech just wants to recoup the money it spent to develop it. Right?Until now, drug makers have typically defended high prices by noting the cost of developing new medicines. But executives at Genentech and its majority owner, Roche, are now using a separate argument — citing the inherent value of life-sustaining therapies.
If society wants the benefits, they say, it must be ready to spend more for treatments like Avastin and another of the company's cancer drugs, Herceptin, which sells for $40,000 a year.
"As we look at Avastin and Herceptin pricing, right now the health economics hold up, and therefore I don't see any reason to be touching them," said William M. Burns, the chief executive of Roche's pharmaceutical division and a member of Genentech's board. "The pressure on society to use strong and good products is there."
Right on. The biotech houses charge based on back-calculating price per dose, adding about 20% thereabouts and knowing what their costs are. Which are very high, don't get me wrong...but come on, the Genentech scientist in the article is simply naive.
posted by jimboses @ 8:49 PM
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