Juggling between the Cost and Value of New Therapies: Does Science Still Serve Patient Needs?

Abstract

Thalassaemia International Federation (TIF), representing the united voice of people with thalassaemia and their families globally, has been striving for more than three decades to empower research, by academic communities and industry, to focus on developing a safe and effective curative approach for thalassaemia. Such a cure would lead to new lives with equal opportunities and challenges, as for every other person not suffering from a severe chronic disease. A gene therapy product was finally authorised in May 2019 by the European Medicinal Agency, thus marking a milestone in the history of the disease. However, after this conditional authorization, everyone focused on numbers and opted for cost of illness and cost-effectiveness studies, inadmissibly ignoring patients’ voices and needs. The product was finally withdrawn from Europe, despite the fact that all implicated stakeholders, including governments, academia and industry always knew that an innovative and complex therapy would be expensive but always supported and fought for its development. In this article, TIF expresses its view on this issue, including some thoughts on how to address the high cost of innovative therapies.