Pfiz­er ap­peals on an­ti-kick­back case; Chi­nese rare dis­ease biotech en­lists UW to re­search Duchenne gene ther­a­pies

Last month, a judge told Pfiz­er that the phar­ma gi­ant can­not pay out-of-pock­et costs for Medicare pa­tients to buy the com­pa­ny’s $225,000-a-year heart drug tafamidis. That was be­cause, ac­cord­ing to the judge, the move would vi­o­late fed­er­al kick­back law.

And on Fri­day, Pfiz­er ap­pealed the rul­ing — ac­cord­ing to a fil­ing in the US Dis­trict Court for the South­ern Dis­trict of New York.

How­ev­er the Pfiz­er case turns out, it will have im­pli­ca­tions for oth­er com­pa­nies mov­ing for­ward — such as Bio­gen, af­ter they agreed to pay $22 mil­lion last year for us­ing foun­da­tions to pay co-pays for their MS drugs Avonex and Tysabri.

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