Drug pric­ing watch­dog joins the cho­rus of crit­ics on Bio­gen's ad­u­canum­ab: What about charg­ing $2,560 per year?

As if Bio­gen’s ad­u­canum­ab isn’t con­tro­ver­sial enough, the re­searchers at drug pric­ing watch­dog ICER have drawn up the con­tours of a new de­bate: If the ther­a­py does get ap­proved for Alzheimer’s by June, what price should it com­mand?

Their an­swer: At most $8,290 per year — and per­haps as lit­tle as $2,560.

Even at the top of the range, the pro­posed price is a frac­tion of the $50,000 that Wall Street has re­port­ed­ly come to ex­pect (al­though RBC an­a­lyst Bri­an Abra­hams puts the con­sen­sus fig­ure at $11.5K). With crit­ics, in­clud­ing ex­perts on the FDA’s ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee, mak­ing their fierce op­po­si­tion to ad­u­canum­ab’s ap­proval loud and clear, the pric­ing pres­sure adds one ex­tra wrin­kle Bio­gen CEO Michel Vounatsos doesn’t need as he or­ders full-steam prepa­ra­tion for a launch.

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