What on earth is the controversy over PCSK9 medicines for cholesterol.??

By James Joseph Rybacki, Pharm.D. 1/8/19

Hmmmm, it comes down to money, or it used to, or, it still does. Let’s take a closer look. The challenge for the two novel cholesterol medicines in the PCSK9 family (evolocumab Repatha and Alirocumab or Praluent) has NOT been lack of use because they don’t work, it has been failure of insurance companies to pay the roughly $12,000 dollars per year that they cost. Let me repeat that. COST, NOT results has been the key reason that these extremely effective and safe medicines have not been widely used.

A study released at the Heart Association meeting in Chicago Nov 11, 2018 showed that the ODYSSEY Outcomes trial found Praulent is cost-effective when the price is $6,319 a year when the willingness-to-pay threshold is at a usually accepted $100,000 per QALY (Quality Adjusted Life-year). The author, Deepak Bhatt from the Brigham and Women’s hospital expressed his hope that this analysis might provide evidence for what the price should be, versus market pricing that uses expense that might be tolerated.

Interestingly, the Repatha manufacturer (Amgen) lowered the price of Repatha to $5,850 per year last October. It will be interesting to see how Repatha sales are impacted by this novel pricing.