Tough Talk, On Price, From Walgreens' Partner, Express Scripts. . .

I am off-grid, at a seminar this early morning -- so chew on this until I return -- Express Scripts is firing shots across the bow of big pharma -- this is new, indeed.

Per the Wall Street Journal's health care blog, then:

. . . .“Never before has a drug been priced this high to treat a patient population this large, and the resulting costs will be unsustainable for our country,” warns Express Scripts chief medical officer Steve Miller, in a statement. “The burden will fall upon individual patients, state and federal governments, and payers, who will have to balance access and affordability in way they never have had to before. . . .”

As Dr. Miller sees it, though, Sovaldi is actually part of a larger trend in recent years in which so-called specialty medicines, a category that often includes biologic medicines that are injected or infused, are priced at ever-higher levels that are not sustainable. “The current pricing mentality around innovative products,” he cautions, “is unprecedented and unreasonable. . . .”

Merck is called out by name in the article as well. Do go read it. This is solid encouragement of US price competition -- spurred by the ACA of 2010's rolling implementation, in action. And that is a good thing -- for the system, overall. Be excellent to one another.