当32岁的前对冲基金等内容的照片er Martin Shkreli splashed across computer screens last month, the Turing Pharmaceuticals founder became the face of what many view as an unsustainable crisis of high prescription drug prices. Shkreli’s company had purchased the rights to Daraprim, a treatment for a rare parasitic infection that afflicts those with AIDS or other immune disorders, and subsequently raised the price by more than 5,000 percent, from $13.50 to $750 per pill.
“关于Shkreli的头条新闻听起来很可怕，”旧金山的RBC资本市场高级生物技术分析师Michael Yee说。
The Shkreli episode was an outsize version of the sticker shock that’s been plaguing the pharmaceutical industry for years. On the one hand, pharma companies and their investors take on significant risk to bring drugs like Daraprim to the market and believe they should be compensated for that risk. On the other, patient advocates argue that there is a moral obligation to ensure that those who need such drugs can afford them — particularly when the drug in question already has an established base of users.
Many analysts remain bullish on biotech despite the recent tempest over prices, saying that the long-term prospects for many drugs and products will stand the test of situations like the one created by Turing, which was little known before the ruckus. But experts agree that a more subtle concern about the industry has arisen in recent years, which pharmaceutical firms may be forced to address in coming months, whether through better communication about product values or through congressional committee grillings.
Turing’s eye-popping price increase for a medication used by a few thousand people each year, coupled with Shkreli’s lawsuit-laden professional past — Retrophin, another biotech company he founded, is suing him for $65 million for allegedly bringing that company public to satisfy a fraudulent scheme to enrich hedge fund firm MSMB Capital Management, of which Shkreli was a co-founder — and他在访谈中的自我满足风度似乎使他成为患有药物定价挫折的人的完美目标。其中一个人碰巧是总统候选人希拉里克林顿，因为在20世纪90年代初的卫生保健改革努力失败的日子，武士前总统比尔克林顿的卫生保健改革努力失败的日子以来，毒品定价是宠物原因。9月21日克林顿推文到了一个故事New York Times关于Shkreli和Daraprim的信息：“像特种药物市场这样的价格刨刨是令人遗憾的。明天我会铺设一个计划来接受它。“
The tweet sent biotech stocks, which had reached highs in July, into a tailspin. It only took a few minutes for the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF to register the comment: Activity spiked, and the price fell 4.57 percent before the close. The biggest losses on the Nasdaq on September 21 were biotech stocks, including BioMarin Pharmaceutical and Biogen, which both lost 6 percent, as well as Retrophin, which lost 14 percent. Meanwhile拉夫尔，魁北克州的缬草药品国际是墨水公司最活跃的可收购者之一，从9月中旬以来，其股票载玻片载玻片超过30％。在那个月底，国会民主党人提出了杰森····施亚德议员的监督和政府改革委员会的共和党校长，向副纳斯·瓦朗特为与两颗心脏药物，亚硝基和等量的突然价格徒步存在相关的文件。
Daraprim News打破后的第二天，克林顿推断了她的计划：为涵盖药物的每月250美元的家庭覆盖外包药物成本。股票跌幅继续，纳斯达克生物技术指数在10月6日星期四下降了6.3％。
“生物技术股票表现普遍存在，整体市场波动 - 即，中国和一个大型标准普尔修正。希拉里的评论吓坏了很多人，给他们一个额外的理由在生物技术股中获取利润，“Yee说。“担心这是一个更像循环的开始，而不是结束。”
As the presidential campaign warms up, it’s unlikely that Clinton’s rhetoric about drug prices will end, and other Democratic candidates may take up the same cause. But Yee points to “general agreement” on Wall Street that “a proposal by Hillary Clinton is extremely unlikely to result in any material changes,” and also to the fact that the cheap prices of stocks such as Biogen over the past few weeks don’t represent pipeline value.
“每当Biotech公司靠近禁止管线 - 价值[价格]，它应该是一个购买信号，”他说。
SHKRELI和TINGE可能发出的封面可能来自于2013年的丙型肝炎药物SOVAROVI的GILEAD SCIENCE。然后，提请注意SOVILDI的1,000美元的价格标签，而GILEAD强调该药物的治愈率超过90％以上。
“Cancer drugs have approached these price points in the last three years, but I think it was really the hepatitis C category that blew the lid off the story,” says Philadelphia-based health economist and consultant Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, who runs health care advisory firm THINK-Health.
The shocking price tag also came at a time when many in the U.S. were adjusting to higher deductibles requiring more out-of-pocket costs, in the wake of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The introductions of the hepatitis C drug and several pricey cholesterol drugs, new this year, from Amgen (Repatha) and Sanofi and Regeneron (Praluent), which insurance companies hesitate to cover, have created hostile sentiment among consumers. Experts maintain, however, that the stress on stocks may be easier to contain than Big Pharma’s reputation. They key will be communication with investors about the value their products offer, whether it be curing hepatitis C or cutting down on hospitalizations and doctor visits for patients with high cholesterol.
“It’s easy to point at a high price tag of one specific drug and hold that out as emblematic of a problem that’s systemic,” says Greg Levine, co-chair of the life sciences practice group at law firm Ropes & Gray in Washington. “The industry is really trying hard to spread the word about the value new medicines deliver and make that educational message resonate, but it’s challenging to have a rational debate in the current environment.”
Levine, who was a member of the Hillary Clinton’s Task Force on National Health Care Reform in the early 1990s, notes that drug price reform often comes up during election cycles, and in the past it has not had a long-term impact on pharma companies or their stocks.
Yee还指出，药品成本仅占美国医疗保健总成本的10％，约占Medicare支出的11％。虽然它周围的争议可能是大声的，但它是市场的一小部分。
“这是一个非常情绪化的问题，”怡说。“人们有很多道德和道德问题，但我们需要平衡这一事实，即这是一个自由市场社会。该行业要求企业家和投资者承担毒品开发的重大风险 - 它是任何人可以承担的最具危险的企业之一 - 和价格反映出来。“在Shkreli和Valeant的情况下，公司所采取的风险是关于问题的。该公司在徒步旅行之前获得了已经被批准的药物，并在徒步旅行之前被患者使用。但是，公司争辩说，从更昂贵的药物销售额的利润将恢复到新的药物销售。国会或未来的药物改善是否证明这是真实的，分析师和顾问表示，这些公司将不得不更加努力地说服市场，他们的产品值得他们所声称的是值得的。
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