January 13, 2015
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor
The president of Gilead Sciences said Tuesday that 48 percent of its revenue now comes from its pipeline of hepatitis C drugs, a controversial topic that has been roiling markets since October, when massive benefits provider Express Scripts said it would not cover Gilead’s treatments for the disease because they are too expensive.
But, Gilead COO John Milligan, president and chief operating officer, says “active negotiations” with payors will “play itself out” as they compete with adversary AbbVie , which has inked an exclusive deal with Express Scripts.
Milligan made the statements at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference which began Monday in San Francisco and is the oldest and largest conference of its type. It includes 300 of the largest biotech, healthcare and biopharma companies presenting their top-line data and estimates to 4,000 of eager bankers, analysts, institutional investors, hedge funds and journalists.
Gilead became engaged in a price war with Express Scripts in October when the payor said it would change its standard formula to cover only a new, cheaper AbbVie product, instead of choosing Gilead Science’s pricey Harvoni or Sovaldi treatments.
“The cost of [Sovaldi] is unsustainable for many of our plans,” Steve Miller, chief medical officer of Express Scripts, told analysts late Wednesday. Sovaldi and Harvoni sometimes have multiple stages of treatment, and cost $94,500 and $84,000 per course—or around $1,000 per pill.
Later in the day, Express Scripts CEO George Paz fired back. During his own J.P. Morgan presentation, heal took aim at companies that charge sky-high rates for drugs that are essentially a cure, such as Gilead’s hepatitis drugs Harvoni and Sovaldi.
Express Scripts has pointed out that many public health programs like Medicaid and state prison systems currently foot the bill for the $94,500 price tag of Sovaldi, which has a cure rate of around 90 percent.
“Everyone’s got to make money, but how much?” said Paz.
