MPs threat­en to hi­jack Ver­tex’s IP for its cys­tic fi­bro­sis drugs in a long-run­ning stand­off over price

Af­ter at­tack­ing UK Prime Min­is­ter There­sa May last sum­mer for NICE’s de­ci­sion to dig in on Orkam­bi in search of a deep dis­count on the price, Ver­tex CEO Jeff Lei­den may soon have to broad­en his scope to in­clude a large num­ber of MPs.

MP Bill Wig­gin is call­ing for a de­bate on Mon­day over en­act­ing a “Crown Use” li­cense that would al­low NICE to push through a gener­ic of Orkam­bi — strip­ping the patent pro­tec­tion around the lead­ing ther­a­py for a seg­ment of the cys­tic fi­bro­sis mar­ket. One of the most in­ter­est­ing as­pects of Wig­gins’ move, though, is that he says NICE is look­ing to ap­prove pay­ments of $120 mil­lion a year for all of Ver­tex’s drugs, or $600 mil­lion for the next 5 years, ac­cord­ing to a new note from Jef­feries’ Michael Yee.

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