Is Tesaro play­ing a pric­ing game with Ze­ju­la? Not at all, says the CEO. And here's why

A few weeks af­ter the FDA ap­proved Ze­ju­la (ni­ra­parib), Tesaro’s new PARP in­hibitor for re­cur­rent ovar­i­an can­cer, the biotech got around to nam­ing the whole­sale list price. And that is:

$9,833 for a one-month sup­ply of Ze­ju­la at a dose of 200 mil­ligrams once per day.

Why did they pick 200 mg? Be­cause, they said, that’s what the most com­mon­ly used dose was in Phase III.

But hold on. The ap­proved start­ing dose of the drug is 300 mg a day. And if you use sim­ple math the price for that would be $14,749.50 a month. A year’s sup­ply would be $176,994.

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