MFN drug pricing

[jon-nyc]

I was talking to a pharma exec at the Greenwich country club (I was at a fundraiser there). He was telling me that a lot of big pharma are going to hit their MFN targets (reminder - that’s the thing where you can’t sell the drugs in Europe for less than in the US) by simply not marketing their drugs in Europe and charging the normal price here.

I imagine it’s more politically palatable to offer the drugs to the Europeans at US prices and let them just decline.

[taiwan_girl]

So, they would not market them, but would still sell them in Europe?

(What does MFN mean?)

[jon-nyc]

MFN is ‘most favored nation’.

No, when I said not market, I mean they wouldn’t put them up for sale at all. Or as I suggested, write off the idea of selling to Europe, price the US as they normally do, offer them to Europe at that price, be unwilling to budge given MFN, and accept that Europe will turn down the drugs in most cases.

[kluurs]

Couldn’t they just do a different formula for Europe and get around the problem? Red Add an ingredient not used in the US, and call it something different.

[jon-nyc]

If it met the threshold of being a different drug it would probably meet the threshold of needing its own clinical trials and approval

[Doctor Phibes]

@kluurs said:

Couldn’t they just do a different formula for Europe and get around the problem? Red Add an ingredient not used in the US, and call it something different.

If they added garlic to the European one that might work.

[Wim]

@kluurs We got a lot of generic drugs. Not an isue, unless we'te talking highly sophisticated stuff.