Hope for little patients and their families / Appeal to Novartis to significantly reduce the price in the EU


The current coronavirus crisis is of high concern to all of us, but we should not lose sight of people suffering from chronic, previously untreatable diseases. For one of these patient groups, MEP Peter Liese, EPP health spokesperson of the largest group in the European Parliament Dr. med. Peter Liese (Christian Democrats), now has good news.
 
The novel gene therapy drug Zolgensma from Novartis currently costs around two million US dollars (1.9 million euros) in the USA. It is used as a single-use therapy for children with spinal muscular atrophy. However, the drug has not yet been approved in Europe. This will change quickly as an approval is close. "I assume that the approval of Zolgensma will be granted soon. This week, the expert committees at the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which is responsible for Europe-wide approval, issued a final positive assessment. The European Commission will officially issue the approval in a timely manner. It can now take place quickly."

Liese, who was himself serving as a doctor in a children's hospital said. “I appreciate that this will make a new, alternative therapy for the terrible disease of spinal muscular atrophy available for the very young patients and their parents and siblings and that uncertainties for doctors and patients about the applications without approval will be a thing of the past. "In the interest of the patients and their relatives, I hope that the drug will meet the high expectations. I urgently call on Novartis to bring the drug to the European market at a significantly lower price than in the US so that our healthcare system is not burdened by excessive costs, particularly in times of corona," Liese concluded.