A ‘radical proposition’: A health care veteran tries to upend the system and bring drug prices down

The U.S. health system could get some relief from rising drug prices from an unlikely source: a venture capitalist starting a new company to try to make medicines less expensive.
Alexis Borisy, 47, is a fixture in Boston biotech, known for his striking felt fedoras. He co-founded Foundation Medicine and Blueprint Medicines, both of them based in Cambridge, Mass., and focused, in different ways, on using genetics to treat cancer — the kind of approach that has produced remarkable outcomes but also driven up the price of drugs. His next company, called EQRx and being launched Monday, seeks to bring them down. He will serve as both CEO and chairman.
“I’ve spent the last 25 years creating breakthrough new medicines,” Borisy said in an interview. “We’ve ratcheted up the prices on them ever higher, frankly, because we can,” he said. “And the reality is we can create a lot of these great new medicines, and turn that into a viable business charging a lot less for them. This is not fantasy world. This is something that can be done.”
Using current methods of inventing drugs, Borisy believes it will be possible to create new medicines that mimic the effects of existing big sellers, and bring them to market in a matter of years. Then EQRx will sell them to insurers and large hospital systems at a discount, displacing the innovators. Because its medicines will be cheaper to develop, EQRx will be able to make a handy profit despite these lower prices. The key question is whether health insurers and giant hospital systems have gotten desperate enough to want to shake up the system.

A ‘radical proposition’: A health care veteran tries to upend the system and bring drug prices down Alexis-Vignette-portrait-645x645

A ‘radical proposition’: A health care veteran tries to upend the system and bring drug prices down Alexis-Vignette-portrait-645x645

https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/12/venture-capitalist-alexis-borisy-bring-down-drug-prices/

A ‘radical proposition’: A health care veteran tries to upend the system and bring drug prices down

A ‘radical proposition’: A health care veteran tries to upend the system and bring drug prices down

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