On Thursday there was news of a study which suggested that one or both of New Merck/legacy Schering-Plough's BoceprevirTM, and Vertex's Telaprevir®, would ultimately be needed in so-called next generation "cocktails". Either one of these -- in combinaiton with pegylated interferon (one version of which is made by Roche, and another version of which is made be Merck -- as successor to Schering-Plough), might be used to combat rapidly mutating strains of Hepatits C. That would suggest -- in pursuit of a humane treatment of patients who have previously failed treatment -- that payors ought to ultimately provide Tier I coverage for both of these new drugs, when they reach the US market. [UPDATED: Additional sentence, and edits above, courtesy of Salmon's helpful suggestions in comments, below.]
This morning, two health industry study groups have put out a white paper (of sorts). The two, HealthLeaders-InterStudy and Fingertip Formulary, suggest that while the first to market will enjoy a clear formulary advantage, as many suggest they will only cover one of the two drugs. This paper goes on, however, to subtly argue that both ought to be covered, from a humanitarian standpoint, citing the $138,000 projected drug cost, over the Hep C patinets' lifetime, for failed Hep C drug treatments:
. . . ."While there is a need for emerging therapies for those hepatitis C virus patients who have failed therapy with existing drugs, the second-to-market status will hamper uptake of whichever brand reaches the market second, because some health plans will only includeeither boceprevir or telaprevir on formulary," said Michael Malecki, Ph.D., product director, Formulary Forum. "However, there's a high percentage of pharmacy directors who do not know the costs associated with drug failure. Surveyed national health plans that do have an estimate for the cost of treatment failure report spending an average of $138,000 over the lifetime of a hepatitis C virus patient who fails drug therapy. For marketers of emerging therapies, pharmacoeconomic analyses of these costs may be persuasive tools to gain formulary inclusion. . . ."
We'll keep an eye on this one, but as I've long surmised, Merck is likely to finish second in this race to market.
2 comments:
You may want to clarify.
They both won't be needed in a cocktail together rather both drugs with likely needed to be used in a cocktail that is expected to include ribavirin and/or alpha interferon.
Alpha interferon is made by both Roche and Merck and so there may or may not be a boost in sales to one or the other.
In any event it's likely that the first and best to market with get the lion's share of the market and based on reports it seems that Vertex's product is ahead on both fronts.
Salmon
Good point -- as ever, Salmon -- will revise now.
Namaste
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