Ben Levisohn from Barron's discusses an analyst's report regarding the FDA's warning about Viekira Pak, one of the newer Hep C drug's.
"Yesterday the FDA warned that Hep C treatments with Viekira Pak can – in some cases – cause serious liver injury mostly in patients with underlying, advanced liver disease. We believe this disclosure will impact some physician prescribing and drive incremental share shift to Gilead’s Hep C drugs. At the beginning of the year, Express Scripts positioned Viekira Pak as the exclusive option on its National Preferred Formulary (NFP) for patients with genotype 1, and we view this announcement as an incremental negative for Express Scripts. While Express Scripts also has access to Gilead’s (GILD) drugs (e.g., Sovaldi and Harvoni), we estimate that Express Scripts generates higher rebate dollars and profitability from Viekira Pak."
Note: the reason for forcing patients to fail first on Viekira Pak before being 'allowed' to pay for another drug is to maximize profits.
Two questions:
First, how many other step therapy or fail first protocols -- structured to maximize rebates and profits -- are exposing patients to drugs that could injure or kill them? CMPI will be looking into this issue. In depth.
Second, I wonder what the ASCOs and oncologists posing as economists will do since they have essentially rallied around 'value' frameworks that extend the Express Scripts Hep C approach to cancer patients. A few months ago, these 'experts' were more than happy not only to put the seal of approval on fail first but also help design them.
As in Peter Bach tweeting Thrilled @ExpressScripts to operationalize my Indication specific pricing model for cancer drugs As in "clinical trial data and input from experts like Dr. Peter Bach, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, will shape Express Scripts' further strategy."
If you are going to be thrilled about the operationalization, you should be willing to accept responsbility for the harm done when adopted.
