Sophie Schmitz on the Importance of Considering Value of Gene Therapies, Not Just Cost

Gene therapy provides an opportunity for every patient to become not a patient, to become an individual, and you can’t put a cost on that, explained Sophie Schmitz, BA, MA, managing partner, Partners4Access.

Transcript

Why is it important for payers to keep in mind the value of high-cost gene therapies and not just their price?

The thing here with gene therapy, what we need to understand, is yes, they might seem costly, certainly at the outset, but we’re talking about therapies that impact a patient over the lifetime of their disease. I’d like to take hemophilia as an example, actually, of a disease which is obviously lifelong, and patients need to be very attuned to their disease to even be able to survive. If we look at that disease, the value to patient of not having to prophylactically take medicine, the value to a patient of having good bone health, and also, as well, the value to a patient of getting rid of the badge of that disease, is something that’s quite difficult to just value from a monetary perspective; it’s much bigger than that. I think gene therapy provides an opportunity for every patient to become not a patient, to become an individual, and you can’t put a cost on that.