4 ms·
> If we're going to have Medicare and private insurance companies pay $56K/year per patient for a drug that may not have positive effects that outweigh the risk
by adrianmonk 5y ago
> If we're going to have Medicare and private insurance companies pay $56K/year per patient for a drug that may not have positive effects that outweigh the risk of side effects, that's a major problem.
Hmm, what if we added a new phase where it's approved but can only be sold at a low, regulated price? Then if/when it is proven effective, they can transition to charging more.
Without getting into whether it's actually a good idea, in theory the high prices are meant to be a reward that makes it worthwhile to invest in drug development. Delaying the reward would still allow that incentive but keep it tied to actually creating drugs that work while still allowing patients earlier access.
- rolleiflex 5y agoThe risk with that is that it creates a ‘perverse’ incentive for the FDA to not fully approve drugs because the approved drugs might shoot up in price 1000x the moment they exit the ‘purgatory approval’, and granting the official approval might kill some people who can afford the purgatory price, but not the fully approved official one.
- pontifier 5y agoSo lock in the price for the ones that started taking it before it was fully approved.
- rolleiflex 5y agoThat then would create the ‘perverse’ incentive for poorer people who are dying of major diseases to sign up for any and all trials possible to lock in prices, regardless of relevance, and make things much, much worse for themselves due to misuse. Richer people would not do that since they can pay the full price without locking the old price in, so this risks converting the sick and poor people already battered by life into lab rats. If you instead don’t enforce the requirement to actually take the drugs to lock in the price, then everyone signs up for everything and your drug companies will stop making any new drugs.