The scoop: Marathon’s R&D pro­gram for Duchenne MD drug like­ly came in at a bar­gain base­ment price

On Fri­day, as news spread about the FDA’s ap­proval of Marathon Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals’ ap­pli­ca­tion for Em­flaza (de­flaza­cort) as an or­phan drug for Duchenne mus­cu­lar dy­s­tro­phy, CEO Jeff Aronin went on the of­fen­sive over his plans to sell the drug at an $89,000 list price, which im­me­di­ate­ly drew scruti­ny from some long­time ob­servers of the in­dus­try.

Aronin pulled what has be­come a stan­dard play out of the guide book for phar­ma com­pa­nies fac­ing price goug­ing charges. He told re­porters at sev­er­al pub­li­ca­tions, in­clud­ing the Chica­go Tri­bune and the Wall Street Jour­nal, that it would take years for Marathon to be­come prof­itable, con­sid­er­ing all the R&D costs that had been sunk in­to de­flaza­cort. And — like Tur­ing founder Mar­tin Shkre­li, caught on the horns of a con­tro­ver­sy over Dara­prim pric­ing — he vowed that pa­tients would be pro­tect­ed, with pay­ers cov­er­ing the cost.

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