Pricing is key for new heart drugs challenging cheap generics

[riky]

Pricing is key for new heart drugs challenging cheap generics

<p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/pricing-key-heart-drugs-challenging-cheap-generics-165741140--finance.html"><img src="http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/yrIW44lqa4AjprcogeNBLw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTg2O3E9NzU7dz0xMzA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-09-01T165741Z_1_LYNXMPEA8019E_RTROPTP_2_INDIA-PHARMACEUTICALS.JPG" width="130" height="86" alt="People walk past a chemist shop at a market in Mumbai" align="left" title="People walk past a chemist shop at a market in Mumbai" border="0" /></a>While new treatments on show in Barcelona are certainly moving cardiovascular medicine forward after a series of setbacks in recent years, cardiologists say that cost will be key in determining how widely they are used. “We are entering a new era of treatment and, of course, it will cost a lot of money, which is a problem,” said Michel Bertrand, emeritus professor at the University of Lille and a past president of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Hopes have spiked for a heart failure drug from Novartis and an innovative class of injectable anti-cholesterol agents known as PCSK9 inhibitors after the release of data at the ESC's annual meeting indicated that they can save more lives than standard therapies. Novartis's new heart failure drug LCZ696, for example, was tested in a pivotal trial against enalapril, a generic drug in the so-called ACE inhibitor class, a month's supply of which can be bought at Wal-Mart stores for only $4.</p><br clear="all"/>

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