Revolution Medicines has set the list price of its newly approved pancreatic cancer pill at about $39,800 for a 30-day supply, which works out to roughly $477,600 for twelve consecutive fills. The company disclosed the figure in a securities filing and on the investor call it held the day the drug was approved. Taken as two tablets once daily, that comes to about $663 a tablet, as reported by The New York Times.
For families weighing this treatment, the sticker price is not the number that matters most. What a household actually pays depends almost entirely on the type of insurance it carries. A Medicare beneficiary and a commercially insured patient with a high deductible can fill the identical prescription in January and face very different bills.
