The company asked for VYNDAMAX - about half a million a patient a year • This is the same price it already receives for a similar drug • Pfizer: We offered a big discount

• Pfizer's Vyndaqel drug

The international pharmaceutical giant Pfizer demanded the state a full and very high price for the expensive drug VYNDAMAX, designed to treat genetic and life-threatening heart disease.

The disease affects several hundred patients in Israel, and the cost of the drug is about half a million shekels per patient - a year. This drug has been discussed in recent days by the Drug Basket Committee, and it has the largest budget in these marathon discussions.

The Pfizer is criticized in the health system, as the controversy bedrock is that to date, another drug that is almost identical to VYNDAMAX, but intended for another disease (genetic amyloidosis) - can be given to five patients in Israel because it is a rare disease.

But the cure for heart disease required about 500 patients, and Pfizer demanded from the basket committee for the same price it receives for patients with the rare disease.

The price of the drug means that it may cost an annual budget of up to NIS 200 million to the Ministry of Health and the HMOs, which is almost half of the existing budget for the update of the drug basket (about NIS 500 million).

However, the drug received a high rating for its importance by the Hessel Committee, and it was discussed yesterday and will be discussed today at the end of the committee's marathon (see separate article on page 14). The Hessel Committee contacted Pfizer, as well as other pharmaceutical companies, and demanded a significant reduction in the price of the drug, so that the annual budget and cost per patient were not yet closed.

The price that Pfizer demands for the drug for hundreds of patients has been criticized in recent days by doctors and managers in the health system. A source in the health system told "Israel Today" that "it is a very exaggerated and exaggerated cost relative to the number of patients who need it in the new outline.

When a medical device is designed for five patients a year, and a device that is almost completely identical to hundreds of patients, it would be public and ethical that the price charged by the pharmaceutical company for hundreds of patients should be completely different and much lower. "

A source close to the Hessel committee told Israel Today that, at least until before the committee's final hearings, the drug company "objected to lowering the price of the drug, even though it now involves hundreds of patients who need it."

The basket committee also wrote senior doctors who support the introduction of the drug into the basket. Prof. Kobe George, director of cardiac surgery at the Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot, also wrote that it was "a serious and incurable disease, and it is hoped that they will be able to approve the drug for a disease that shortens its life expectancy as much as that of cancer patients."

Prof. Michael Arad, a senior heart center physician at Sheba Hospital in Tel Hashomer, wrote to the Hessel Committee: "Over the years, I have diagnosed and treated more than 150 such patients. Given the high cost of the drug and the potential for misdiagnosis of the disease, I offer clear and rigorous medical criteria for determining the diagnosis and eligibility for drug treatment in the basket. The drug was recommended to the Baskets Committee as a first priority by the Cardiology Association of the Medical Association. "

Pfizer said in response: "The allegations are baseless. The new drug is not in the drug basket and it was submitted to the basket at an exceptional price, reflecting a 50 percent discount on the maximum price expected for this drug. Moreover, even with a biological equivalent between the two drugs (bio equivalent) At 86 percent of the price of the drug in the basket.

The committee for the expansion of the health basket said: "The committee is having intense discussions and is expected to submit its recommendations in the coming days."