By Deena Beasley
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) — Amgen (AMGN) on Monday launched direct-to-consumer U.S. sales of its cholesterol-lowering medication Repatha at a discounted cash price, becoming the latest pharmaceutical company to respond to U.S. political pressure to lower drug prices.
The cash price of $239 a month is nearly 60% below Repatha’s current list price, but is not available for people using health insurance. Amgen says on its website that 98% of commercially insured U.S. patients have coverage for the drug with monthly co-pays as low as $15.
Few people in the U.S. pay cash for prescription medications. Most have insurance – either commercial or public plans like Medicare – that charge them a fixed co-pay or percentage of a drug cost. Insurers typically receive confidential discounts or rebates directly from drug manufacturers, bringing their costs well below list prices.
For people without health insurance, drugmakers, including Amgen, offer reduced-cost or free drug programs.
“There are problems with the insurance market and people’s ability to navigate that, but making brand-name drugs available through a direct consumer pathway at a brand-name price is not going to make those drugs available to all but a vanishingly small number of people who can afford to pay cash prices,” said Harvard Medical School Professor Aaron Kesselheim.
Repatha, given by injection, had sales of $2.2 billion last year.
To keep the costs of expensive drugs under control, insurance plans can require doctors to seek authorization for a new prescription or try older medications first. People purchasing through the new portal dubbed AmgenNow will not be subject to those requirements, Amgen said.
Amgen was one of 17 major drug companies to receive a letter from President Donald Trump in July demanding they charge U.S. patients the same price as people pay in other high-income countries, create direct-to-consumer channels and increase investment in the U.S. Trump threatened to impose 100% tariffs on branded drugs to those that failed to comply.
Amgen said its new cash price for Repatha matches the lowest it now receives in any economically developed country.
Shares of Amgen were down about 1.5% on Monday.
Pfizer last week agreed to reduce prescription drug prices for the government Medicaid program, which covers low-income people, to match lower prices overseas, and said it would launch direct-to-consumer sales of a handful of its drugs.
Pfizer also said it would offer most-favored-nation pricing on new drugs launched in the U.S., and Trump flagged that other drugmakers would follow suit.
