Following the approval of Toripalimab by the Food and Drug Administration, two more Chinese-made cancer drugs have received approval for distribution in the US.
The WAC (wholesale acquisition cost) is the cost that distributors pay to purchase a drug from the manufacturer. Pharmacies and etc. charge a rather sizable markup on top of the WAC. According to this SEC filing from Coherus, the WAC of Loqtorzi (Toripalimab) is 8892.03 USD. This is public, verifiable information and is lower than what end users will be billed. The WAC provides the lower bound for the cost of Toripalimab in the US.
All of this is verifiable using publicly available sources. People on lemmy.world not liking the facts doesn’t make the facts themselves inaccurate.
Edit: in the best case scenario and taking many liberties with US pharmaceuticals pricing, you might see an up to 50% discount on the WAC of 8892.03 USD under 340B purchasing for low-income Americans (but also, maybe not because 340B discounts might not apply to Toripalimab). This can be viewed as the cost Medicare/Medicaid pays for the drug, I think. That would be most directly comparable to the NRDL price although NRDL is not just for low-income residents in China because of the single-payer system.
Almost all pharmaceuticals are driven by the cost of drug discovery and studies. You want the cost of drugs to be enough to drive investment into new drugs, but not so much that it becomes impractical for people to afford.
I mean yeah, the entire point is to maximize profit.
I was just curious if this was an inflated price due to “intellectual property rights” associated with the drug, which it appears to be.
I wonder how much it costs to actually manufacture. I feel like more people should understand that before they accept paying $8k or even $800 for a drug.
The WAC (wholesale acquisition cost) is the cost that distributors pay to purchase a drug from the manufacturer. Pharmacies and etc. charge a rather sizable markup on top of the WAC. According to this SEC filing from Coherus, the WAC of Loqtorzi (Toripalimab) is 8892.03 USD. This is public, verifiable information and is lower than what end users will be billed. The WAC provides the lower bound for the cost of Toripalimab in the US.
Junshi launched Tuoyi in 2019. China published the agreed pricing for these drugs in the 2021-2022 period as part of the NRDL: for a 240mg/6mL bottle, the price is 2100.97 yuan (296.27 USD at today’s exchange rate). I’ve linked the translation, but the original NRDL is cited in the article. China restricts drug sale prices using the NRDL, which dictates how drugs are sold and reimbursed by China’s single-payer system.
All of this is verifiable using publicly available sources. People on lemmy.world not liking the facts doesn’t make the facts themselves inaccurate.
Edit: in the best case scenario and taking many liberties with US pharmaceuticals pricing, you might see an up to 50% discount on the WAC of 8892.03 USD under 340B purchasing for low-income Americans (but also, maybe not because 340B discounts might not apply to Toripalimab). This can be viewed as the cost Medicare/Medicaid pays for the drug, I think. That would be most directly comparable to the NRDL price although NRDL is not just for low-income residents in China because of the single-payer system.
So, what exactly about this drug is hard to manufacture? Is it solely the “intellectual property” rights associated with it?
Or does it require some rare materials or difficult manufacturing process?
Almost all pharmaceuticals are driven by the cost of drug discovery and studies. You want the cost of drugs to be enough to drive investment into new drugs, but not so much that it becomes impractical for people to afford.
I mean yeah, the entire point is to maximize profit.
I was just curious if this was an inflated price due to “intellectual property rights” associated with the drug, which it appears to be.
I wonder how much it costs to actually manufacture. I feel like more people should understand that before they accept paying $8k or even $800 for a drug.
Junshi owns the IP and is licensing it out to Coherus.