$600 or $3,120? Gilead Puts a Price Tag on Covid-19 Relief
The pharmaceutical industry has been stubbornly opaque about how much it truly spends on research and development.
Fair drug prices start with transparency about expenses.
Photographer: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images
While a world awash in a pandemic awaits a coronavirus vaccine, Gilead Sciences Inc. is bringing a treatment to market.
Remdesivir is an experimental drug that may help Covid-19 patients recover more quickly — but it doesn’t immunize them. Its price tag is $600 for a series of six treatments for patients who live in developing countries where Gilead, to its credit, allows a generic version to be sold. If patients live in a developed country and the government insures them or provides their health care, it costs $2,340. If they have private insurance and live in the U.S., it costs $3,120. (And that’s if six treatments work; some patients are expected to need 12 treatments, so those prices could double.)