A recent Washington Post story looks at the high price of specialty drugs--and who should get them. "Months before Gilead Sciences’ breakthrough hepatitis C treatment hit the market, Oregon Medicaid official Tom Burns started worrying about how the state could afford to cover every enrollee infected with the disease. He figured the cost might even reach $36,000 per patient.

Then the price for the drug was released last December: $84,000 for a 12-week treatment course.

At that price, the state would have to spend $360 million to provide its Medicaid beneficiaries with the drug called Sovaldi, just slightly less than the $377 million the Oregon Medicaid program spent on all prescription drugs for about 600,000 members in 2013. It potentially would be a backbreaker.

...Executives at Gilead, which makes Sovaldi, said the uproar over the drug’s price tag will die down as more stories emerge about patients being cured.

“We believe that over time the health-care system will save a lot of money by these patients being healthy again,” said John Milligan, president and chief operating officer, on an earnings call Wednesday night.

Sovaldi recorded $2.3 billion in sales over the first three months of the year, making it the best launch of a drug in history. On Wednesday Gilead reported second quarter sales totaling $3.5 billion."

Read the full story at the link listed above.

Deb