Amid ongoing furor over prescription drug pricing, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals chief executive Len Schleifer has sometimes gleefully adopted the role of an industry contrarian, openly poking other companies for price hikes. His ongoing penchant for addressing the topic, in fact, gives him the appearance of a Jiminy Cricket lecturing pharma’s Pinocchio.
But Schleifer, who is prone to monologues, is not an indiscriminate naysayer. We spoke with him at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference about recent price hikes that Sanofi — a Regeneron partner — took on a drug, the balance between innovation and accessibility, a controversial cost-effectiveness watchdog, and policy solutions to high prices. This is an edited conversation.
You’ve talked about Dupixent (an atopic dermatitis treatment marketed with Sanofi) as being a pipeline-in-a-molecule, meaning a growing list of indications. Does that suggest, though, that pricing will vary? If so, how do you justify setting different values?
I like the way you think Len. Yes,the system we have is broken. And yes there is a place for the PBM’s. The problem is lack of transparency with the PBM’s.
The use of a bogus price like AWP is one of the problems. But thats one of the many ways the PBM’s take from every American. PBM’s should not be allowed to own pharmacies, in any form , weather it be retail or mail order. Is there no conflict there?
Rebates are extortion to have a manufacturer’s drug be on formulary. PBM’s have
mandatory mail order. Why ? If the generic is a different color this month, the patient has no one to talk to about it. Many times the doctor changes the patients meds. Now the patient is stuck with 75 days worth of meds that they are not taking.
The pattern of criminal activity that the PBM’s have been doing for years MUST stop!! ONLY then , will drug prices go down.