Boehringer Ingelheim’s New Lung Drug to Cost $96,000
(Corrects drug price in headline.)
Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) — Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH priced its new treatment for a deadly lung-scarring disease at $96,000 a year, just higher than Roche Holding AG’s competing product.
Both companies last week received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for their drugs, bringing the first two treatments to the U.S. market for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that kills 60 percent to 80 percent of patients within five years. Roche said it plans to charge $94,000 a year. Because of the chronic nature of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, patients are typically on the drug for life.
Boehringer’s U.S. Chief Executive Officer Paul Fonteyne said the Ingelheim, Germany-based company consulted widely before settling on a price.
“What you end up doing is a lot of interviews and research with patient associations, patients, physicians, payers, and you try to triangulate on a price that on the one hand provides access to the medicine to these parties and on the other hand allows you to recoup your investment,” he said in a telephone interview. The company will also offer financial assistance to patients who can’t afford the drug.
Roche acquired Brisbane, California-based InterMune for this year $8.3 billion, based on the market potential for the lung therapy, known as Esbriet. Boehringer’s product, Ofev, was expected to be approved after Esbriet, but the agency cleared both drugs at the same time.
The U.S. will be closely held Boehringer’s first market for Ofev. The company has started the process for approval in Japan and Europe.
Roche’s Esbriet was approved in 2011 the European Union and also is cleared for sale in countries including Canada, China, India, Mexico and South Korea for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. About 48,000 Americans are diagnosed each year with the disease, according to the Coalition for Pulmonary Fibrosis, a patient advocacy group.
To contact the reporter on this story: Cynthia Koons in New York at ckoons@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net Andrew Pollack, Drew Armstrong
