Amgen 60% discount on the cholesterol drug

Image Credit: Reuters

Announcement 

Amgen has freshly introduced its direct-to-consumer US sales of Repatha, the cholesterol-lowering medication, at a 60% discount price rate. With the discount, the company has become the recent pharmaceutical companies to respond to the US political tactic to lower drug prices. The cash price of $239 monthly is noted to be 60% below the repatha’s latest list price, but is not yet accessible for the health insurance holders. Amgen mentioned on its website that 98% of regular marketized insured US patients have access to the drug with the monthly co-pays lowest from $15.

Few individuals in the US prefer to pay in cash for prescription medications. Most of the individuals have insurance through public or commercial plans such as Medicare. Medicare charges a fixed percentage or co-pay of the drug price. The insurers will get rebates or confidential discounts from drug manufacturers at a precise low cost than the listed prices. For individuals without drugmakers, health insurance involving Amgen provides free drug programs or reduced costs. The repatha injection gained the profit of sales of around $2.2 billion last year.

Amgen’s reason for the discount initiative

Amgen was one of the 17 crucial drug companies in July to receive a letter from President Donald Trump asking for the same price to US patients as individuals are paying in different high-income regions. Also, to generate the direct-to-consumer channels and leverage investment under the US Trump rule to impose 100% tariffs on the well-branded drugs, especially on those that have not succeeded in complying.

The Harvard Medical School’s Professor Aaron Kesselheim said, “There is an issue with the insurance market and individuals’ potential to address that, but bringing brand-name drugs into the spotlight via a direct consumer platform at a brand-name price will not make these drugs available to a larger population. It’ll be available to a compact number of individuals for whom it's affordable.”

Amgen claims that the new cash price for Repatha is equal to that of the lowest receivable in a developed, economically stable country. The trump administration is planning to introduce a website known as ‘TrumpRx’ that will support consumers with browsing for an affordable drug from its manufacturer. The California’s, Thousand Oaks drugmaker is also planning to integrate other medicines into AmgenNow. Amgen further confirmed the potential according to the large study performed on its development.