Associated Press, 07.11.11, 11:29 AM EDT 
Sanofi also listed the side-effects as headache, rash, fever, nausea, flushing, hives, and chills, leaving out the deaths reported in the clinical trials.
I also was very wary when I read the study and they were touting the drug as being able to prevent disability outright. It was even reported that it may reverse brain damage from MS. Nothing short of a miracle, right? Or a selling point worthy of $20.1 billion?
If you have been following this blog because you or a family member has Multiple Sclerosis you may know about the Sanofi takeover of Genzyme. Alternately, if you are one the many pharmaceuticals or investors or PR and advertising firms that visit us, you already do know that Sanofi completed the $20.1 billion buyout of Genzyme.
Which brings us to Campath (acquired from Bayer by Genzyme) now known, or trying to be known, as Lemtrada. We have written about it here because of the shameful desire to increase the price of a relatively inexpensive cancer treatment to $60,000 per year for Multiple Sclerosis treatment.
It is NOT YET APPROVED for use by the FDA. Campath/Lemtrada is still in clinical trials. Here is a link to the latest in their Clinical Trials.
At one point, Genzyme was giving Campath away for compassionate use in cancer patients. This was done by Genzyme to erase the yearly sales figures so that when the same drug rolls out (when approved) the $60,000 per year price sticker for Multiple Sclerosis won’t have a sales comparison number–of something much, much cheaper. Redefines the whole meaning of compassion, doesn’t it?
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Health Care Reform:
While the Affordable Care Act is not yet a law–we still have until 2014 for the whole thing to go
into effect–the GOP is back to using their favorite catch phrase, “death panels.”
Here is a link to an article in Talking Points Memo about Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) raising the dirty spectre of death panels and rationing yet again. Just an FYI, Rep. Gingrey voted to abolish Medicare. I think the good doctor should know better than to espouse what he does, but here’s the quote:
We’re the only democratic and industrialized nation in the world without a universal plan; a plan where anyone can buy into a risk pool and get themselves covered no matter what. We all get sick, it’s part of the human condition. It’s how we treat ourselves that defines our society.
My husband now, having been without insurance for six months, can finally apply to the new high risk pool–thanks to the Affordable Care Act. We ask the representative from Georgia, “What should we do, Dr. Gingrey?” Repeal the health care law like you and every member of the GOP want to do so that my husband (and all other Americans like him) will go without health insurance and health care?
Crying tort reform over and over, as Dr. Gingrey does, isn’t going to fix the system, but considering that the good doctor has himself been sued for malpractice several times, it becomes obvious why he repeats this so often. And why he’s introduced legislation into Congress that would limit damages for pain and suffering from malpractice cases. See H.R. 5 of the 112th Congress.
Dr. Gingrey has this to say about health care reform:
Government takeover of health care? A proven lie.
If government is so bad, why does Dr. Gingrey want to use government to sharply cut medical malpractice awards? Won’t the free market just sort things out on its own?
But if Dr. Gingrey is speaking about the government creation of a high risk pool to help my husband and all Americans with pre-existing conditions get access to health care by purchasing insurance that will cover them, then I suggest he re-read his Hippocratic Oath.
As for tax burdens and small businesses, small businesses love the Affordable Care Act because they get tax breaks. And read more here, from Fox News.
Are we being threatened by rising costs? Yes. Why? Because Dr. Gingrey and his GOP ilk refuse to expand Medicare to Everyone. A national health plan that would compete for customers may inspire the private health insurers to actually produce a good product. Competition does that. As it is now, the private health insurers have zero competition.
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Now onto the National Multiple Sclerosis Society:
We got a flyer from the National MS Society the other day about their teleconference series that, “is designed to support individuals with MS through the continuum of their work experiences; from staying employed, to retraining and on to post-employment options. Understanding how to access vital resources will help individuals make the best choices through any stage of their workforce journey.”
With all the money the National MS Society takes in (and spends), this piece of writing just sent me over the edge as it purports to say
something without saying anything at all. They paid for that with your donation dollars. And it gets worse:
Applying Through Your Employer’s Long Term Disability Benefits When MS Progresses
Featured speaker Lisa Kantor, LLP from Kantor and Kantor will share her expertise as an advocate who has successfully represented people in Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) benefit claims for over 18 years. If you have MS and Long Term Disability Insurance through your employer, you will want to know how to apply for and access these vital benefits.
Let me just begin by saying that the whole reason I’m here writing this, the whole reason this Foundation exists is because of the way my husband was treated both by his Long Term Disability insurance carrier, CIGNA.
He was denied his benefits by CIGNA. Twice. We had no where to turn for help, including the MS Society at the time.
This sort of teleconference series makes the National MS Society look good, but doesn’t really help. And with all the money they have, imagine what they could do. They could start by lobbying Congress to fix ERISA–that would go a long way in helping not just those with MS but all who have been denied their benefits or who have been mistreated by their health insurer.
Listening to Ms. Kantor may be helpful, she may even gain a few clients from this teleconference, but she can’t help you “apply for and access these vital benefits.” She simply cannot and that has nothing to do with Ms. Kantor.
See, one cannot actually access their long term disability benefits. I wrote extensively about that over at Illness and Insurance Hell.
Your insurance carrier starts the process while you are still on short-term disability; they will insist you apply for Social Security benefits and prove that you have been through that process or else they’ll deny your claim. They will even offer you help with one of their attorneys to make sure you go through the Social Security process.
To make matters even worse, they will obfuscate the truth (that’s called lying) in the face of medical evidence; they make things up. And when they are threatened with legal action, they send photographers (bad ones I’d like to add) to your house to photograph you and your family. My husband has lesions on his brain and spinal cord, could the guy with the camera, snapping away at us, somehow disprove that?
Then, after all of that, they all attend conferences with federal judges (among others) to figure out how to defend against ERISA claims. Anything not to pay a claim.
Which brings me back to the Affordable Care Act, the Ryan plan to abolish Medicare and the GOP still trying to get rid of health care reform.
I ask this: If the GOP succeeds in repealing health care (doubtful) but say they do, then the provisions in the law that help people, that stop lifetime caps, give seniors free preventative care, that fill the Medicare donut hole, that stops insurers from retroactively cancelling your plan, that gives Medicare drug discounts–if the GOP stops all this then what good is that $8,000 Ryan Voucher?
A new article in the Annals of Neurology has made its way across various blogs and discussions about Multiple Sclerosis around the internet. It’s about CCSVI. And when we saw this article’s head line here, “Cerebrospinal Drainage Not Tied to Multiple Sclerosis,” along with the disclaimer:
Several of the researchers on this study disclosed financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis, and Merck-Serono.
Our first reaction was that any study that is to be done (especially one involving a treatment that could potentially make MS drugs a thing of the past) the authors need to be free of any ties to pharmaceutical companies. The authors are:
Here are the full conflicts of interest from the article:
All of the above pharmaceuticals make Multiple Sclerosis drugs and have a large stake in those drugs. They cost a lot of money. See more about how much money here, here and here. And here as well.
This Foundation is not going to go into the details of the findings of the study. That is best left to experts in this field.
And as we find discussions on this study, we will post them here like the one at the MS blog on About.com. I threw in my two cents as well.
This Foundation just wants to point out the conflicts of interest to demonstrate that studies like these need to be done by those free and clear of the ties as shown above, like being members of the board of Pfizer, Sanofi and Merck. Seriously.
Much more information about CCSVI at The Reformed Multiple Sclerosis Society.
We have been posting (see here and here) on Genzyme’s possible treatment for Multiple Sclerosis, Campath, or as it is now being marketed, Lemtrada. Campath is a drug used to treat certain types of cancer but now Genzyme is looking to sell it for the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis. They think they can reach around $3 billion in sales doing so as well.
To get an idea of how much money is already involved in the marketing of this drug, which still has not received FDA approval, I found an article at PR Week where it was reported, back in December of last year, that Genzyme had already engaged a PR firm, Cohn & Wolfe, to help in their “global pre-launch communications,” of the drug.
Genzyme has said that the drug could generate between $3 and $3.5 billion in annual sales by 2017. That is, simply, a lot of money for one drug. But, considering what the CEO of Genzyme, Henri Termeer said of the market for Multiple Sclerosis, they obviously have very high expectations for their drug:
Termeer also noted that the overall market for multiple sclerosis is $14 billion, and Genzyme executives said their research showed there is significant demand for new treatment options. Alemtuzumab, they said, is more effective, convenient, and easier for patients to tolerate than drugs now on the market.
We agree with Mr. Termeer that there is a very significant demand for new treatment options, especially ones that don’t just manage the disease (or cause other debilitating diseases in the process, see Tysabri and brain infection, PML), but ones that could actually cure the disease. It’s why so many people with MS are looking at the new liberation treatment for CCSVI with great hope.
To get an idea, a glimpse if you will, of how much Genzyme (or Sanofi, if the take-over does succeed) will charge for their still unapproved Multiple Sclerosis treatment of Campath/Lemtrada, a little mathematics and some fact gathering is in order.
Remember, Campath/Lemtrada is still a relatively inexpensive drug, especially for the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis, since the amount of the drug used is much smaller than for the treatment of cancer. So for Genzyme to be touting the market in the billions, we wanted to get an idea of how much they think they can charge.
We’ll start here with the population of the United States. It is, roughly, 310 million people. One report has it at 307 million, while this from the Census Bureau has it at 311 million. We’ll use 310 million as a mid-range, easy-to-calculate number.
Of that number, roughly 400,000 people have been diagnosed with MS. No one really knows how many people have it, according to the National Institutes of Health. My number is being a bit generous, by about 50,000, to play it safe.
What I found is, based on my numbers, roughly, .1% (that is point one percent) of the population of the United States has Multiple Sclerosis.
Based on Mr. Termeer’s number of the Multiple Sclerosis market being around $14 billion globally (I am assuming globally here) then Genzyme hopes that this one drug will corner around 21% of the global Multiple Sclerosis market–$3 to $3.5 billion of a $14 billion market.
And it still has not been approved. And they’ve hired a PR firm to help in pre-launch communications. Are they this certain? There are high expectations for this one drug and it seems there are even higher expectations on the pricing of this drug.
How much does Genzyme have to charge to gain 21% of the market?
Genzyme will either have to corner a very large share of the Multiple Sclerosis market by 2017, unless a cure is found before then, or raise the sales price of the drug for Multiple Sclerosis patients to hit those numbers.
Campath now generates roughly $112 million in sales for Genzyme* (2008 sales figures) so to get to $3 billion, that would have to be, roughly, a 97% increase in price combined with a deep market reach.
But how many people have Multiple Sclerosis and more importantly how many people globally with MS have access to adequate health care? Who can afford this?
The numbers on those questions remain elusive. We think that Genzyme sees its billions coming from raising the price of this relatively inexpensive drug to the price shared by the drug, Gilenya (which was first synthesized in 1992 for use in organ transplants),which is the most expensive Multiple Sclerosis treatment available at $48,000 per year.
Already MS patients are seeing issues with getting their supply of this expensive drug. See the MS World.org forums here and here.
It would be more humane (if this drug does get FDA approval) for Genzyme to keep their expectations of achieving a $3 to $3.5 billion share of a market more in line with reality and with what people with Multiple Sclerosis have to go through–from a body that is leaving its sufferers frustrated and debilitated, to insurance issues like the ones you see here.
After all, spin and PR it any way you want, Genzyme (and Novartis, since Gilenya or Fingolimod is relatively cheap to synthesize), its investors and executives are hoping to make money as the Multiple Sclerosis market grows–betting more will be diagnosed and suffer its effects–and then more money will be made from a drug that is, after all, relatively inexpensive for the treatment of MS in the first place.
How much money is too much?
*I could only reach the cached version of the article I quoted. Here is the original link:
http://www.bioworld.com/servlet/com.accumedia.web.Dispatcher?next=bioWorldHeadlines_article&forceid=50472 It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Dec 29, 2010 23:18:07 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime
They’re still at it, Genzyme and Sanofi are still in talks about a takeover by Sanofi and Genzyme is still touting their as-yet-to-be-approved treatment for MS, now openly being called by the name “Lemtrada,” as a $3 billion per year seller.
Campath (Lemtrada) was approved in 2001 for the treatment of lymphocytic leukemia, so for it to be used as a possible treatment for MS, and for Genzyme to be using this as leverage for a higher asking price, is well, in our opinion, shameful considering the price of Campath, aka Lemtrada.
What would stop doctors from using the cancer-priced vials rather than the far more expensive MS priced vials?
Could this have anything to do with the name, Lemtrada? A small reformulation tied to a higher price? Rebranding to make us think it isn’t a cheaper drug? We think it’s one of those and we are awaiting more information as it becomes available and will post it up here on our site.
From Bloomberg.com:
Sanofi-Aventis SA and Genzyme Corp. said takeover talks now involve executives from both companies as the two sides discuss extra payments tied to Lemtrada, an experimental multiple sclerosis drug.
Genzyme’s Lemtrada, sold under the name Campath as a treatment for blood cancer, may have sales of $3 billion to $3.5 billion by 2017 if approved for multiple sclerosis, according to the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company. Sanofi and Genzyme said they are discussing a “contingent value right,” under which the French drugmaker would make additional payments for regulatory approval of the treatment and the achievement of certain sales thresholds.
You can search for clinical trials of Campath here at ClinicalTrials.gov. More on what we wrote about Genzyme and Campath here.
Why are we keeping an eye on Tovaxin? Because Opexa seems to understand that not killing the patient is the best way to go about trying to treat Multiple Sclerosis. The only adverse effects reported in the clinical trials so far have been mild to moderate reactions at the site of injection. No one has died!
Although there was a random glitch with their trials in 2009, where the control group had a very low relapse rate and the treatment group a high relapse rate, the newest trials have been very positive:
Opexa Therapeutics announced that they are preparing to start the late-stage clinical trials for Tovaxin, a new MS drug that uses your own T-cells to make a “personalized T-cell vaccination for the treatment of MS.”
Let’s break this down into easy to understand terms about how a “personalized T-cell vaccination” would work. Taken directly from Opexa’s website is this graphic that explains the process:
No brain melt as can happen with Tysabri. No compromised immune system, bradycardia or macular edema as can happen with Gilenya. Campath, not as yet approved by the FDA, has had deaths in their clinical trials.
What remains to be seen is the cost. Will Opexa go the way Novartis did and charge $48,000 per year? (and Gilenya is a pill) or will they find a way to satisfy themselves and their shareholders and charge a reasonable fee for what looks to be a very promising therapy? Time will tell.
You can read more useful information from those who were in the Tovaxin trials here, at the This Is MS Forums.
MS Activism 