CNN –
The price of the life-saving Covid-19 antiviral drug Paxlovid will more than double as the United States moves out of the emergency phase of the pandemic, drugmaker Pfizer said on Wednesday.
The list price before insurance is $1,390 for a five-day course, Pfizer said in a statement. That’s 2.6 times higher than the price of $530 per course paid by the U.S. government to provide Paxlovid free to patients during the pandemic. The Wall Street Journal first reported the new price.
Pfizer noted that the list price “does not necessarily reflect the price a patient will pay” and said the company is working to establish health insurance arrangements that would be accompanied by low out-of-pocket costs for patients. The company also announced that it will offer co-pay assistance to qualified individuals, which could eliminate their out-of-pocket costs.
People who have Medicare or Medicaid or are uninsured can get Paxlovid free through a patient assistance program through 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said last week. Pfizer said the program will be extended through 2028 for patients who are uninsured or “under-insured.”
The list price change comes as the U.S. moved from a system in which the government bought the drugs and made them available to everyone for free to a more traditional commercial market. Paxlovid will continue to be available free of charge to patients through this system until the end of the year.
Prices for Covid-19 vaccines also rose as they underwent a similar transition to the commercial market, rising about fourfold to $115 to $130 per dose. A financial analyst had estimated a potentially similar three- to five-fold increase for Paxlovid, which would have pushed the list price up to $2,500.
Dr. Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, described a possible increase as “price gouging” when CNN reported this week on Pfizer’s plans to raise costs.
“It’s hard to call it ‘good news’ that the increase was instead only 2.6-fold,” Topol wrote in an email to CNN on Wednesday. He and other doctors had warned that a price increase for Paxlovid would create hurdles for people to get the drug.
Pfizer said Paxlovid was “a breakthrough in the fight against Covid-19 and has helped treat millions of high-risk patients in the United States and millions more around the world.”
The new price, the company said, “is based on the value it provides to patients, providers and health systems as it plays an important role in reducing hospitalizations and deaths due to Covid-19.”