Biogen Decision to Change Aduhelm Price After Public Outcry Demonstrates Big Pharma Prices Solely Designed to Maximize Profits
During a recent interview at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Biogen CEO Michel Vounatsos defended the Big Pharma’s company’s decision to price its unproven Alzheimer’s treatment at $56,000 per year, arguing that the price was “evidence-based” and “a price that eventually we could defend.” Vounatsos went a step further and said that the company’s decision to slash this price in half, after broad backlash from patients, lawmakers, drug pricing advocates and medical experts was “courageous.”
What Biogen’s CEO left out, is that Biogen’s reduced price tag for Aduhelm is still approximately three to 10 times greater than what the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) concluded would be a fair price for the treatment with little to no proven clinical benefit for patients. ICER’s analysis found that a fair price for Aduhelm would fall somewhere between $2,500 and $8,300.
Biogen’s pricing of Aduhelm is so egregious the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced a $21.60 increase in Medicare Part B monthly premiums for 2022, an increase of 14.5 percent, and the largest dollar figure increase in the program’s history. CMS officials cited Aduhelm’s price as a key factor in the agency’s decision to increase premiums.
Biogen’s “courageous” decision to change the price of its unproven treatment, in response to widespread outrage, is also the latest evidence that Big Pharma’s pricing tactics are designed to maximize profits, not recoup any investment in research and development (R&D) or fund new innovations.
Big Pharma companies, like Biogen, will charge whatever prices they think they can get away with – no matter the impact on patients, taxpayers and the U.S. health system.
Read more about how Biogen’s egregious pricing of Aduhelm added to the unprecedented momentum in Washington to hold Big Pharma accountable and lower prescription drug prices HERE.
Read what patient advocates, physicians and researchers, clinical experts, drug pricing advocates and even Wall Street analysts had to say following Biogen’s initial pricing of Aduhelm HERE.
Read CSRxP’s statement on the FDA approval and subsequent Biogen pricing of Aduhelm HERE.
Learn more about solutions to hold Big Pharma accountable and lower prescription drug prices HERE.