Pharmaceutical pricing is becoming more and more scrutinized with the high prices unaffordable to many countries’ health systems and out of reach for many people whose lives depend on these drugs. Such prices were most recently drawn into focus following the patenting case between the company Novartis, who make the Glivec drug that has proved incredibly successful in dealing with chronic myeloid leukemia, and Indian generic drug companies who make cheaper copycat versions of the drugs. The Indian Supreme Court ruled against Novartis whose patent application was judged to be inapplicable because it was an example of ‘evergreening’ – the practice of making small adjustments to already existing drugs in order to make new patent applications except that the practice is viewed as illegitimate in patent law.
The accusation that leading pharmaceutical companies are profiteering and therefore condemning poorer patients to death has now been made by a group of influential cancer experts. The group is made up of more than 100 leading cancer doctors from around the world.
“What determines a morally justifiable price for a cancer drug?” the group of specialists ask. “A reasonable drug price should maintain healthy pharmaceutical industry profits without being viewed as ‘profiteering’.”
It is widely held, however, that most prices are indeed “profiteering” prices. 11 of 12 drugs approved by the FDA in 2012 were priced above $100,000 per patient per year. Such prices wouldn’t be approve in the UK by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) meaning the NHS cannot pay for it. This forces doctors to apply to the Cancer Drugs Fund to help patients in Britain to afford such drugs. The cancer experts have grouped together to say enough is enough, and launched their campaign against these insensitive prices in the journal Blood.
Take Glivec, once more, as an example of such extortionate pricing. The cost of Glivec has risen from £18,000 per year for each patient to around £21,000 in the UK, while the price has increased threefold in the US from $30,000 to $92,000. Companies like Novartis claim that the money is needed to fund the research behind their drugs, cutting edge research which is needed in order for doctors to be able to treat cancer suffering patients at all.
“Over the years, our programmes have evolved to improve patient access to our medicines”, Novartis are quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph. “We work together with government healthcare systems, charities and other payers to build successful cost-sharing models.”
And yet, with a drug like Glivec, the price of research had already been covered by the original price so what necessitates the price rise is unknown – unless accusations of “profiteering” are true. Indeed, the trend of ever increasing profits at Novartis is striking. In 2001 the original price at Glivec was considered “high but worthwhile” with annual revenues of $900 million; In 2012 their revenues were $4.7 million. It is thought to be unlikely that all of this money is going straight towards further research.
Written By William Barns-Graham
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