DRUG MAKER REDUCES PRICE FOR CHOLESTEROL MEDICINE
Patients who were prescribed Repatha, Amgen’s treatment for high cholesterol, wanted the treatment, but couldn’t office the price, so the company made the decision to cut the drug’s cost by 60 percent.
In October of last year, Amgen cut the price for a biweekly dose of Repatha, bringing the annual from $14,100 total to roughly $5,850. With this latest announcement, the biotechnology giant will reduce the cost of the monthly dose by 60 percent. While the positive reaction in itself may not make up for the money Amgen will lose, the number of patients that will recon- sider taking the drug at its lower price was encouraging enough for Amgen Chairman and CEO Bob Bradway to support the move.
FORMER CANNIMED CEO STARTS NEW CANNABIS EXTRACTION COMPANY
The former chief executive of licensed producer CanniMed Therapeutics Inc. has a budding new cannabis business largely made up of his former employees. Brent Zettl, former chief executive of licensed producer CanniMed Therapeutics Inc., says the Saskatoon-based biopharmaceutical company Zyus Life Sciences Inc. won’t involve growing pot but will instead buy cannabis from licensed producers and focus on extraction and devel- opment of plant-based medicinal products for the global medical market. Zettl says he started this venture days after he resigned from CanniMed, following the licensed producer’s agree- ment to be acquired by rival Aurora Cannabis Inc and has acquired a former ethanol extraction facility in Saskatoon and now has 43 employees, 35 of which previously worked with Zettl at CanniMed. Zettl says the company is focused on developing medicinal oil products, rather than cultivation, because of the higher margins and the anticipated oversupply of dried cannabis in Canada, that will eventually lead to shrinking margins for the product.
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JANUARY 2019 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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