Coronavirus drug cost no balm from Gilead

Remdesivir is a game-changer in the fight against COVID-19, as the drug has been shown to shorten recovery time for severely ill patients.

This is great news for wealthy and low-income Americans who become infected with the coronavirus and require life-saving care.

For those in the middle class, the news is less rosy.

Drugmaker Gilead announced its price plan for a typical treatment course of remdesivir — $2,340 for people covered by government health programs

Americans with private insurance will be charged $3,120.

“We’re in uncharted territory with pricing a new medicine, a novel medicine, in a pandemic,” Gilead CEO Dan O’Day said in a statement announcing remdesivir’s pricing.

We suggest they get a better chart.

As anyone who’s sat in company benefits enrollment meetings knows, private insurance is not cheap, and most insurers offer some sort of tiered system so workers can pick a plan with higher deductibles, but lower copays — whatever works to save money.

Even if, technically, remdesivir is covered under their private insurance, employees will likely have to foot some of the bill.

Consumer advocacy group Public Citizen pointed out that the cost of developing the drug was paid for by taxpayers.

“Gilead did not make remdesivir alone,” Public Citizen said in a statement on Monday. “Public funding was indispensable at each stage, and government scientists led the early drug discovery team.”

So, our taxes help pay for the research, and we get soaked.

Gilead noted that in in poorer countries, generic drugmakers will be allowed to make the drug and sell it for far less.

So it can be done.

Public Citizen tweeted: “This is an outrage. Gilead is pricing its COVID drug remdesivir at $3,120 for patients w/ insurance. That’s *10 times higher* than the suggested benchmark price. US taxpayers have paid *at least* $70 million to develop this drug. This is deeply immoral.”

While not quite in “PharmaBro” territory — the purview of exTuring Pharmaceuticals head Martin Shkreli, who bought the HIV drug Daraprim in 2015 and raised the price from $13.50 a pill to $750 — this is egregious.

Of course, drug development takes money, lots of it, but when taxpayers are providing some $70M in funding, Gilead should at the very least offer a cheaper, generic version to consumers, or lower the price considerably.