Amgen Inc. is slashing prices of its cholesterol fighting drug Repatha, amidst rising healthcare costs and increased regulatory surveillance to protect patients from exorbitant medicine prices.
The biopharmaceutical company will reduce the U.S. list price of Repatha by -60% - from more than $14,000 a year to $5,850. Repatha is one of the injectable medications that aim to mitigate high cholesterol problems and lower chances of heart attack and stroke. Higher prices have reportedly been hurting demand for such drugs, thereby potentially posing concerns about people’s health. In Q2, revenue from Repatha was $148 million – which beat estimates, was still much lower compared to analysts' previously high expectations about its success. Amgen’s price cut decision also comes amidst U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration’s initiatives to increase transparency on drugs’ pricing and to ease financial constraints faced by U.S. patients.
Talking about its drug price reduction, Murdo Gordon, Amgen’s new executive vice president of global commercial operations said, “The impact we’re trying to have is on high-risk patients, and about 65 percent of those are on a Medicare plan” .