Tauzin: Path Needed For Cures That Spans Financing To Reimbursement

Tauzin: Path Needed For Cures That Spans Financing To Reimbursement-insidehealthpolicy: Tauzin says drug companies were already telling him that curative drugs would not fit into the current system when he was president and CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a job he left in 2010. Critics of the pharmaceutical industry often charged that drug companies were only interested in inventing chronic treatments, he notes. That was a false accusation, he adds, and critics are now complaining about the cost of cures. He says drug companies have long realized it would be difficult to price cures once science got to that point because the system is designed for the long-term recovery of research and development costs. Cures eventually make drugs obsolete so drug companies must get their investments back earlier, he adds.