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Wednesday, Jul 1, 2020

Will US hospitals pay more for remdesivir than other buyers?

Rowan Gannon, Gigafact Foundry
yes

Gilead Sciences will begin charging U.S. hospitals $3,120 for each standard treatment of remdesivir, an antiviral drug that has been shown to shorten recovery time for hospitalized COVID-19 patients by an average of four days. Governments in higher-income countries buying the drug directly, including agencies such as the Veterans Administration, will pay a lower price, $2,340. Gilead said the differential is because of U.S. private insurance programs and the discounts from such prices received by federal insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Gilead said it will work with generic-drug manufacturers to supply less-developed countries at a "substantially" lower cost.

What a U.S. individual patient may pay out of pocket is determined by his or her insurer, who reimburses the hospitals buying the drug to for in-patient treatment.

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