YEAR IN PHARMA
PHARMACEUTICALS
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hen Allergan revealed in September a deal to transfer ownership of patents on its dry-eye drug Restasis to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, the reactions were swift and strong. Designed to block generic competition on a treatment that in 2016 had nearly $1.5 billion in sales, the maneuver was described with adjectives ranging from banal—“unusual” and “unorthodox”—to brutal—“ugly” and “a sham.” “Company leaders should have killed the idea when they heard it,” says Bernard Munos, a senior fellow at the Milken Institute’s FasterCures research advocacy center. “It is certainly not what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they enshrined intellectual property protection into Article I of the Constitution.” By exploiting the potential for sovereignty to render the tribe immune from patent challenges, Allergan became the latest face of drug industry greed. It’s a rotating role that often goes to companies jacking up prices on old medicines. Neither the government nor “the court of public opinion will tolerate bad behavior anymore,” says Thomas Goss, a senior
The spotlight was on drug prices, again Pressure to lower costs ratcheted up as expensive treatments proliferated 42
C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | DECEMBER 4, 2017
vice president at the consultancy Boston Healthcare Associates. But it doesn’t take a scandal to be put in the hot seat. New technologies like gene therapy and cancer immunotherapy were lauded this year for their astounding ability to treat, for example, rare genetic diseases or advanced cancers. At the same time, those treatments were called out for their breathtaking prices. The first chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies, a personalized form of cancer immunotherapy, range in price from $373,000 to $475,000. The first gene therapy, expected to be approved in the next two months, could cost as much as $1 million. With more of these potentially effective—even curative—treatments expected to reach the market in coming years, industry experts anticipate more focus on what they are worth and how to pay for them. “Greater scrutiny across the board puts pressure on innovators to be sure they’re developing evidence-based value arguments,” Goss says. “Having evidence to support a value proposition is critical in this environment.” Without it, he adds, companies will be challenged to get even novel treatments reimbursed by governments and insurance companies.—LISA
JARVIS
C R E D I T: AS S OC I ATE D P R ES S
Allergan CEO Brent Saunders came under fire for the company’s patent gambit
