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YATr_2003 t1_ixvogvs wrote

Reply to comment by GratefulOctopus in A novel medication for hemophilia B has just been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The treatment is a form of gene therapy, intended to replace a dysfunctional gene that leaves people unable to control their bleeding. by Sariel007

There are two reasons the article briefly mentioned, but not other commenters said, so I thought I should highlight them.

The first is that Haemophilia is a rare disease, and as such there are less people to distribute the development cost between, so the cost per patient is high. This is true for any Haemophilia drug, and treatment for some (very) severe cases can be millions of dollars per year. This leads to the second reason, which is that this treatment can be cheaper than the treatment given today. If the government or the insurance companies are willing to pay for it that much money, why not charge them? Yeah, this is immoral and shitty, but since when does that bother pharma companies?

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