A Cure for blindness?
by logan mullan
Spark Therapeutics is a company that sells a drug claimed to cure blindness. The price is $850,000.
It is the first drug of its kind to cure an inherited disease and is believed to be the first of its kind in a new line of gene-targeting medications.
The drug is called Luxturna, and is the type of blindness that this drug treats affects only a few thousand people in the US.
The company claims that the drug treatment can retain vision for up to 10 years for those affected by the disease.
So why charge $850,000 for such a specific drug, $150,000 less than its originally projected price of $1 million?
Could this be greed?
Could this be costs of administering the procedure?
Or as Spark Therapeutics says “the cost for a lifetime of blindness – including lost earnings and caregiver wages – can easily exceed $1 million.”
Though many are not buying that excuse, calling it another example of greedy pharmaceutical companies raising drug prices to exorbitant levels, making lots of lifesaving and/or life-improving drugs unattainable to the 40 million impoverished Americans across the country.
So it is unclear if this drug treatment has a future in America since most Americans can’t pay for an $850,000 procedure, unless they take out a loan or if the person affected is already wealthy.
It is the first drug of its kind to cure an inherited disease and is believed to be the first of its kind in a new line of gene-targeting medications.
The drug is called Luxturna, and is the type of blindness that this drug treats affects only a few thousand people in the US.
The company claims that the drug treatment can retain vision for up to 10 years for those affected by the disease.
So why charge $850,000 for such a specific drug, $150,000 less than its originally projected price of $1 million?
Could this be greed?
Could this be costs of administering the procedure?
Or as Spark Therapeutics says “the cost for a lifetime of blindness – including lost earnings and caregiver wages – can easily exceed $1 million.”
Though many are not buying that excuse, calling it another example of greedy pharmaceutical companies raising drug prices to exorbitant levels, making lots of lifesaving and/or life-improving drugs unattainable to the 40 million impoverished Americans across the country.
So it is unclear if this drug treatment has a future in America since most Americans can’t pay for an $850,000 procedure, unless they take out a loan or if the person affected is already wealthy.