Gilead Sciences has set the wholesale price for its new once-a-day HIV/AIDS pill: It’s $28,500 a year. That works out to $78 per pill.
Earlier this year, the Clinton Foundation reported that it has secured generic drugs for delivering combination HIV/AIDS therapy in the developing world for $200 per year. Of course, that requires taking multiple pills several times a day, which makes compliance more difficult.
Gilead’s four-drug combo pill, taken just once a day, clearly is an innovation. But is it really 140 times more valuable than a generic approach? Perhaps the U.S. health care system should sign up for help from the Clinton Foundation.
By Merrill Goozner
Merrill Goozner is an award-winning journalist and author of "The $800 Million Pill: The Truth Behind the Cost of New Drugs" who writes regularly at Gooznews.com.Visit website | More posts by Author
Spot on!