As talk of drug pric­ing takes cen­ter stage, Am­gen slash­es Repatha price by near­ly 60%

Biotech ma­jor Am­gen $AMGN has de­cid­ed to cut its loss­es, and the price, of its cho­les­terol drug Repatha in a scram­ble to claw back its com­pet­i­tive po­si­tion­ing ver­sus Re­gen­eron $REGN and Sanofi $SNY, the team be­hind its main ri­val treat­ment, Pralu­ent.

Fol­low­ing ap­provals in 2015 the two drugs were pegged to at­tain block­buster sta­tus for their abil­i­ty to dra­mat­i­cal­ly low­er lev­els of LDL cho­les­terol, but in­stead faced push­back from in­sur­ers for their high stick­er prices that led to low­er adop­tion than ex­pect­ed, de­spite lat­er tri­als that demon­strat­ed the PC­SK9 in­hibitors al­so sig­nif­i­cant­ly cut the risk of heart at­tacks and stroke.

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