Sanofi, Regeneron slashes price of cholesterol drug by 60 percent

Sanofi and Regeneron will slash the U.S. list price of their potent but expensive cholesterol fighter Praluent by 60 per cent, as the drugmakers follow a similar move by rival Amgen Inc in hopes of the increasing use of the drug.

NEW YORK: Sanofi SA and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc said on Monday that they will slash the U.S. list price of their potent but expensive cholesterol fighter Praluent by 60 per cent, as the drugmakers follow a similar move by rival Amgen Inc in hopes of the increasing use of the drug.

The new list price for Praluent will be $5,850 a year, matching the price Amgen set when it lowered the list of its competing drug, Repatha, in October.

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Sanofi and Regeneron said they expect the lower-priced Praluent to be available for pharmacies to order in early March. They said the new price should improve patient access and result in lower out-of-pocket costs for U.S. consumers.

Praluent and Repatha belong to a class of injectable biotech drugs called PCSK9 inhibitors that dramatically lower bad LDL cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart attacks and death.

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Sales of both have been severely constrained by onerous roadblocks to patient access put up by insurers looking to limit spending on the expensive drugs.

Sanofi S.A. is a French multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Paris, France. The company was formed as Sanofi-Aventis in 2004 by the merger of Aventis and Sanofi-Synthélabo, which were each the product of several previous mergers. It changed its name to Sanofi in May 2011. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.

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