High Price Tag, Accelerated Approval for New NASH Drug May Give Payers Pause

When the FDA approved Rezdiffra (resmetirom) in March, it gave patients with a serious form of liver disease a long-awaited treatment option tailored to their specific condition. But the drug’s accelerated approval and high price tag are already spurring at least one health insurer to consider options like restrictive coverage criteria and value-based contracting.

NASH represents a progression from a more common condition, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). It occurs when patients start developing liver inflammation that can eventually lead to liver scarring, dysfunction, and even liver failure and cancer.

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Leslie Small

Leslie Small

Leslie has been working in journalism since 2009 and reporting on the health care industry since 2014. She has covered the many ups and downs of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the failed health insurer mega-mergers, and hundreds of other storylines spanning subjects such as Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored insurance, and prescription drug coverage. As the managing editor of Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits, she writes and edits for both publications while overseeing a small team of reporters who also focus on the managed care sector. Before joining AIS Health, she was a senior editor for the e-newsletter Fierce Health Payer, and she started her career as a copy editor at multiple local newspapers. She graduated with a dual degree in journalism and political science from Penn State University.

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