BioCentury
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Novartis teases price of gene therapy, IL-1β mAb as game-changer

November 6, 2018 12:32 AM UTC

During its R&D day Monday, Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS; SIX:NOVN) hinted at a multimillion dollar price tag for its gene therapy AVXS-101, and also discussed plans to disrupt the non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) landscape that is currently dominated by anti-PD-1 and PD-L1 drugs.

On the R&D day call, President of Novartis' AveXis Inc. unit Dave Lennon said that Novartis had shown AVXS-101 was cost-effective at a range of $4-$5 million. A Novartis spokesperson declined to discuss pricing of the spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) type 1 gene therapy and told BioCentury, "The figures discussed today were cost-effectiveness estimates that are based on current models for measuring cost-effectiveness for cell and gene therapies like AVXS-101." ...