Blue­bird en­dors­es plan for in­stall­ment-based pay­ments for cost­ly gene ther­a­py

Pay­ment-by-in­stall­ment to tack­le the sky­rock­et­ing costs of drugs has long been de­lib­er­at­ed in health pol­i­cy cir­cles, but is now gain­ing trac­tion on the man­u­fac­tur­er side in the field of gene ther­a­py, as back­lash to $1 mil­lion-plus prices of these one-shot treat­ments whose long-term dura­bil­i­ty has not been es­tab­lished forces drug­mak­ers to seek cre­ative so­lu­tions to en­sure re­im­burse­ment.

Blue­bird bio $BLUE CEO Nick Leschly float­ed such a mod­el in an in­ter­view with the Wall Street Jour­nal on Tues­day at the JP Mor­gan Health­care con­fer­ence, in re­la­tion to its gene-re­place­ment ther­a­py Lenti­Glo­bin for be­ta tha­lassemia — a rare, in­her­it­ed blood dis­or­der — which is ex­pect­ed to win EU ap­proval this year, and US ap­proval in 2020. Pa­tients with the dis­or­der usu­al­ly re­quire life­long treat­ment with blood trans­fu­sions and med­ica­tion.

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