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Price of evolocumab lowered by 60%
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Amgen announced that it has reduced the list price of its PCSK9 inhibitor evolocumab by 60%, to $5,850 per year.
According to a press release from the company, the move will reduce patient copays for evolocumab (Repatha, Amgen), which were a factor in why 75% of Medicare beneficiaries prescribed a PCSK9 inhibitor never filled their prescription.
“Cardiovascular disease remains our No. 1 public health challenge still. Every 40 seconds, somebody has a heart attack or a stroke. We’ve known now for 60-plus years that LDL cholesterol is a major modifiable risk factor for atherosclerotic heart disease,” David M. Reese, MD, Amgen’s executive vice president of research and development, told Cardiology Today. “Given all of this, it’s been intensely frustrating as a physician and a scientist to see the low adoption rates for Repatha and PCSK9 inhibitors, especially since the FOURIER outcomes trial results showed unequivocally that you can reduce the number of events and reduce the need for revascularization procedures. Yet, we see such underutilization of the drug. We know now ... that cost remains a barrier for far too many patients, in particular the Medicare population. That’s why all of this bundled together is what led us to reduce the list price by 60%. We hope in the Medicare patient population in particular that leads to per prescription copays that now run on average of $350 to $370 per prescription to be reduced to as low as $40 per prescription.”
The company stated in the release that the move is consistent with its participation in the American Heart Association’s Value in Healthcare Initiative and the Trump administration’s goal to lower prescription drug prices, noting that it has not increased prices for any of its medications since May and will not for the rest of 2018.
The company had already been offering rebates to commercial payers in exchange for improved access, according to the release.
“What [rebates do] is allow payers to see that their price that they pay on behalf of employers is good value, and then they decide to approve the reimbursement of the drug,” Murdo Gordon, Amgen’s executive vice president for global commercial operations, told Cardiology Today. “What they don’t do is necessarily address out-of-pocket expense for patients. They definitely don’t do that on the Medicare Part D side.”
Patients and physicians who need help with understanding the changes can contact the Repatha Ready program at 844-REPATHA (737-2842), according to the release.
“Physicians are intensely frustrated,” Reese said in an interview. “They have to repeatedly make attempts to access the medicine through insurers. They go through four, five or six denials sometimes in attempting to get drugs to patients and sometimes they simply fail. Then they’ve heard from patients showing up to the pharmacy that are saying, ‘Wait a minute, I have this giant copay, I can’t afford it.’ They’ve been getting it from both directions. It’s our belief that this will hopefully greatly ease the burden on physicians who are just trying to do the right thing and get the drug into the hands of patients who need it.” – by Darlene Dobkowski
For more information:
Murdo Gordon and David M. Reese, MD, can be reached at 1 Amgen Center Drive, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320.
Disclosures: Gordon and Reese are employees of Amgen.