Gilead of­fers rare apol­o­gy to pay­ers over the hep C drug stick­er shock

Gilead is known for many things, but apol­o­giz­ing for its ac­tions is not one of them. The big biotech has cul­ti­vat­ed rhi­no thick skin when it comes to pric­ing is­sues, but CEO John Mil­li­gan was will­ing to turn a con­trite cheek at Matthew Her­p­er’s Health­care Sum­mit last week when called on to ex­plain the out­cry that met the com­pa­ny’s roll­out of a $1,000-per-pill rem­e­dy.

“I think our fail­ure, if I have to take a step back­wards, we were un­able to have a good enough con­ver­sa­tion with the pay­ers,” Mil­li­gan said, as quot­ed by John LaMat­ti­na in a Forbes col­umn to­day. “Per­haps we were a lit­tle con­ser­v­a­tive about what we could have or should have said to them to al­low them to pre­pare for the num­ber of pa­tients that came for­ward. Hon­est­ly, it was far more than we thought. We did not think the sys­tem could or would try to han­dle as many pa­tients as it did. We es­sen­tial­ly quadru­pled the num­ber of pa­tients treat­ed in a year. That surge re­al­ly cre­at­ed a lot of pain.”

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