I recently covered an author who had some solid advice for drug makers in regards to the rare disease pricing problem. The following drug maker may or may not have needed some of that advice earlier this year…
Last month, Emflaza was approved by the FDA to treat the devastating disease of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.
The catch? It’s price, obviously. Marathon Pharmaceuticals had a little PR problem when it listed the price at $89K per year in the US. It looks even worse that it has been sold for $1,200 per year in other countries. But, that all might change now that they’ve sold the DMD drug to PTC Therapeutics (for a hefty price tag, I might add).
PTC hasn’t directly spoken about how much they plan to charge for the drug, but they are insinuating that they plan to at least re-examine the current price, with patient access to the drug being a top priority.
PTC has previous experience in the DMD world, as they sell DMD drug Translarna in countries outside of the US. PTC taking over sales of Emflaza might be a solid introduction to the United States DMD world, prefacing the tentative approval of Translarna by the FDA.
