Ahead of likely approval, ICER finds Geron’s imetelstat is not cost-effective at $250,000 annually

In the lead-up to the like­ly ap­proval of Geron’s drug to treat cer­tain types of ane­mia, drug pric­ing watch­dog the In­sti­tute for Clin­i­cal and Eco­nom­ic Re­view said Thurs­day that the drug would not be cost-ef­fec­tive at the po­ten­tial price of $250,000 per year.

The 112-page draft re­port al­so found Geron’s ime­tel­stat to be “slight­ly less cost­ly but al­so less ef­fec­tive when com­pared to” Bris­tol My­ers Squibb’s lus­pa­ter­cept, mar­ket­ed as Re­blozyl, to treat pa­tients with myelodys­plas­tic syn­dromes (MDS), which af­fect blood cell de­vel­op­ment and in­crease the risk of leukemia. With few­er blood cells to trans­port oxy­gen through the body, MDS pa­tients of­ten re­quire blood trans­fu­sions, which can be cost­ly, time con­sum­ing and lead to fa­tigue.

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