By lowering the list price, Amgen could significantly lower the patient’s co-insurance payment and/or drug plans could move the drug to a more affordable fixed-dollar payment category. Sanofi and Regeneron recently announced they will also reduce the list price of their competing drug, by 60%—highlighting similar access challenges because of the high out-of-pocket costs for patients. This would seem to have been an announcement celebrated as answering a major consumer and political demand for lower drug prices. The new list price was expected to reduce patient costs to $25 to $150 a month. Drug companies pay rebates (and an administrative fee) to Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) in exchange for priority placement on drug “formularies”—the list of drugs the plans cover.

Source: Forbes March 01, 2019 19:18 UTC