Sorry. This isn’t a story about recreational drugs.

Rather, it’s another example of how Big Pharma could save lives – provided those lives belong to people with a ton of cash to spare.

We’re talking Jeff Bezos rich here.

Swiss drugmaker Novartis has received approval from the US to sell a gene therapy for $2,125 million (almost R30 million) per dose, making it the world’s most expensive drug.

Health24 reports that Zolgensma is taken in a once-off dose, and treats childhood spinal muscular atrophy, a leading genetic cause of infant deaths.

According to the Reuters report, at the moment, other treatments on the market are costing almost $500 000 (more than R7m) a year.

The report says that the results of the first trial were “amazing”, with children who were not expected to walk, or even swallow, or lift their heads, now able to move around and even run.

In that sense, the drug will save you money in the long run, but it still speaks to the high cost of treatment for this disease.

Here’s a more detailed description of the drug, as well as testimony from a parent who gave it to her child:

STAT writes that some experts on drug pricing believe that Zolgensma’s price tag sets a worrying precedent.

A one-time payment of $2.1 million may look like a bargain compared with a lifetime of Spinraza, but if drug companies continue to price each new therapy at a premium to the last, the system might buckle beneath the cost. SMA affects only a few thousand patients in the U.S., but gene therapies for hemophilia and other genetic diseases are on the horizon. If each is priced like Zolgensma, the aggregate cost, passed down through insurers and across the health care system, could become untenable.

Drug companies get richer, while children die.

Peak capitalism.

[source:health24&stat]