Feds snap up nearly all Gilead’s key coronavirus drug — when will California get its share?
The California Department of Public Health said Tuesday that it is working to get more clarity on changes in how the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services wants it to distribute supplies of an antiviral drug that is crucial in the fight against COVID-19.
On Monday, HHS Secretary Alex Azar announced that the Trump Administration had secured more than 500,000 treatment courses of the anti-viral drug remdesivir from Gilead Sciences and would resell those to U.S. hospitals through September.
Hospitals would pay $3,200 per treatment course, the amount Gilead charges on a wholesale basis, HHS stated in its news release on the matter, and they would pass that cost along to Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers. On average, patients receive 6.25 vials in one treatment course of remdesivir, HHS officials noted.
“To the extent possible, we want to ensure that any American patient who needs remdesivir can get it,” Azar stated in the release.
HHS officials said receiving hospitals, not HHS, will pay for the drug through distributor AmerisourceBergen. In a statement sent to The Bee, agency officials said they expect the first shipments of the commercially available drug to be distributed the week of July 13.
Jan Emerson-Shea, a spokesperson for the California Hospital Association, noted that the actual costs will vary for each patient, depending on how many courses of treatment an individual requires. In the case of patients covered by Medicare, she said, U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services do not pay separately for medications. Rather, she said, those costs are built into what they will pay for a COVID-19 diagnosis, and that holds true for most payments from health plans.
The California Association of Health Plans, an insurer trade asssociation representing 46 health plans covering 26 million Californians, said the price of remdesivir is another example of the unexpected costs of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Whether it’s for this new treatment, other new COVID drugs in clinical trials, or future vaccination costs, health plans must be prepared to cover these costs on behalf of their members, CAHP leaders said in a statement sent to The Bee.” This is precisely why premium dollars paid by employers, small businesses and health plan enrollees must be protected so they can receive the care they need as this pandemic continues to unfold.”
Azar said that the sizable purchase of remdesivir represented 100 percent of Gilead’s projected production for July (94,200 treatment courses), 90 percent of production in August (174,900 treatment courses), and 90 percent of production in September (232,800 treatment courses), as well as an allocation for clinical trials.
Azar said the medication would still be distributed to CDPH and other state public health agencies, just as Gilead’s donated supplies of the drugs have been over the last two months.
State health departments will be allotted a supply of the drug that is based on their COVID-19 hospital burden, according to the HHS news release, and depending on the state’s allocation directives, the purchased remdesivir will go directly to hospitals.
Emerson-Shea said that hospitals have been submitting information about the number of COVID-19 cases they are treating to Medicaid & Medicare, and the federal government uses those figures to help determine state allotments.
In an email to The Bee, HHS said it had shipped out the final allocation of Gilead’s roughly 120,000 donated treatment courses Tuesday. The drug can’t arrive too soon to Sacramento and Yolo counties where public health departments ran out of their donated allotment last week.
The shortages come amid a surge of seriously ill COVID-19 patients seeking treatment in the region and state.
In response to a Bee query Tuesday, CDPH officials sent an email saying: “The shipment is expected to arrive on Thursday, and distribution will begin as soon as possible. Future shipments are expected to be delivered directly to hospitals at a price determined by the manufacturer.”
This story was originally published June 30, 2020 at 12:28 PM.
