This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

If Gilenya’s ingredient (fingolimod) costs $14 a month, why is Novartis wanting $4,000 a month for it?

http://www.msworld.org/forum/showthread ... ost1257472

Thanks for posting that link. I believe that the price is set by what they think they can get for the drug, not by what it costs or what it's actually worth.

It's all about "innovation."


There's just one small point about the other forum post...



...the last I looked into it, Betaseron was made in bacteria cells while Avonex and Rebif are made in chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. CHO cells are just a cell type that have been used extensively in laboratories over the years and much is known about them. That makes it easier to use them to manipulate their DNA to raise proteins of interest such as Ifn-B. Moreover, bacteria don't glycosylate proteins (attach sugar groups to them) so the Ifn-B they produce is more likely to be seen as a foreign protein and elicit a neutralizing antibody response since Ifn-B is a normally glycosylated protein in mammals.

NHE

Welcome to the world of MS medicine!

The market share battle for approved MS medications has been and is extremely competitive. A gain of a few percentage points is worth millions of dollars to the companies involved. These companies charge what the market will bear for their drugs, not what it costs to produce them. Why else does the cost of Avonex, Rebif, Copaxone and Betaserone go up year after year when they have been around since the mid 90's?

You often hear from these companies how expensive the research is to develop these products. But at their sales levels, it only takes a few years to make up that cost before the money machine takes over.

This scenario hasn't changed in 50 years and it isn't going to change in the foreseeable future.

Harry