Perspectives: Regeneron Suit Highlights Medicare’s Heartless, Senseless Anti-Kickback Rules

Stat: Regeneron Wasn't Paying 'Kickbacks.' It Was Paying Medicare 
Last Wednesday, the Department of Justice filed suit against Regeneron for paying ” tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks” through a foundation that helps patients cover copays associated with Eylea, its macular degeneration drug. Whether or not Regeneron broke the law, the suit illuminates the stupidity, cruelty, and counterproductivity of Medicare’s insistence that patients feel financial pain in order to receive medically necessary therapies. (Peter Kolchinsky, 6/30)

Fox News: Sally Pipes: Coronavirus Drug Cost – Ignore Critics. Here's Why The Price Is Right
Last week, Gilead Sciences announced that it would sell a five-day course of its coronavirus drug, remdesivir, for just over $3,100. The antiviral, currently the only medication proven to speed recovery from COVID-19, received FDA approval in May. Some Democratic lawmakers and policy experts attacked remdesivir's price as soon as it was announced. They claim that Gilead could sell the drug for as little as $1 per dose – and that the higher price reflects nothing more than the pharmaceutical company's desire to capitalize on the crisis. (Sally Pipes, 7/5)

Las Vegas Sun News: Nevadans Deserve Lower Drug Prices 
Drug prices have been coming down, with more drugs facing generic competition as they come off patent protection. However, one area where drug prices have not come down is in biologic drugs. Biologic drugs have been around since the late 1980s, with the development of insulin, followed by human growth hormone and many others. Those drugs should have competition. And that competition should come from pharmaceuticals known as biosimilars. (John Laub, 7/3)

Bloomberg: Gilead’s Covid Drug Remdesivir Shows Fuzzy Math Of Pricing 
While a world awash in a pandemic awaits a coronavirus vaccine, Gilead Sciences Inc. is bringing a treatment to market. Remdesivir is an experimental drug that may help Covid-19 patients recover more quickly — but it doesn’t immunize them. Its price tag is $600 for a series of six treatments for patients who live in developing countries where Gilead, to its credit, allows a generic version to be sold. If patients live in a developed country and the government insures them or provides their health care, it costs $2,340. If they have private insurance and live in the U.S., it costs $3,120. (And that’s if six treatments work; some patients are expected to need 12 treatments, so those prices could double.) (Timothy L. O'Brien, 7/2)

Stat: A Powerful Law Gives HHS The Right To Take Control Of Remdesivir 
A rare bright spot followed the emergence of Covid-19 and its spread across the globe: the discovery that remdesivir, an experimental antiviral originally developed by Gilead Sciences and the U.S. government for use against Ebola, works against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. Remdesivir isn’t a miracle drug. It has not been proven to significantly reduce patients’ risk of dying from Covid-19, though evidence from an NIH-led clinical trial indicates that it helps patients with severe Covid-19 recover more quickly, meaning they can leave the hospital sooner and return home. We urgently need more and better evidence of remdesivir’s (likely modest) benefits. (Christopher Morten, Christian Urrutia and James Krellenstein, 7/2)