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Law360 (August 5, 2020, 6:40 PM EDT) -- Pennsylvania's elected treasurer on Wednesday hammered Gilead Sciences Inc. for what he said was the drugmaker's "immoral" efforts to wring as much profit as possible through sales of the investigational COVID-19 treatment remdesivir.
Joe Torsella urged Gilead in a statement to reconsider the experimental antiviral drug's pricing scheme, which runs between $320 and $520 per vial, in light of estimates that the medication only costs about $1 per vial for the company to produce.
"It is immoral for any company to reap excessive profits from a treatment against a global pandemic," he said. "Now is not the time to squeeze extravagant costs from hospitals, taxpayers, or families for a vial that costs only $1 to create."
According to the statement, the Pennsylvania Treasury is a shareholder in Gilead.
Remdesivir won an emergency-use approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in May based on clinical trials showing the drug, which has been used in the past to treat Ebola patients, shortened the recovery time for some COVID-19 patients.
Gilead went on to announce at the end of June that it would charge $390 per vial — or $2,340 for a full five-day course of treatment — to government buyers, including patients with government-backed health insurance.
Private insurers, meanwhile, would be charged $520 per vial, or $3,120 for a full course of treatment.
The company said at the time that shortened hospital stays as a result of the use of remdesivir would result in an average savings of $12,000 per patient.
"Even just considering these immediate savings to the healthcare system alone, we can see the potential value that remdesivir provides," the company said at the time. "We have decided to price remdesivir well below this value."
But Torsella pointed to estimates from the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, which calculated that the drug only cost about $1 per vial for Gilead to produce.
In calling for Gilead to reduce remdesivir's price, Torsella noted that the company had developed the medication using $70 million worth of public funding.
"American taxpayers deserve a fair price for a drug they already paid to develop," Torsella said. "In these turbulent economic conditions, each new breakthrough in treatment or prevention of COVID-19 has an effect on the stock market, and uncompetitive, non-negotiable pricing hurts long term shareholder value."
A spokesperson for Gilead did not immediately return a message seeking comment on Wednesday afternoon.
--Editing by Steven Edelstone.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
