- The treatment, Kymriah, made by Novartis, is spectacularly effective against a rare form of leukemia, bringing remissions when all conventional options have failed. It will cost $475,000.
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The company said it was collaborating with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on an approach in which, for children and young adults, there would be no charge if the patient did not respond to the treatment within a month.
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The idea favored by Dr. Miller and others is to pay for these novel drugs as you might a mortgage on a house.
An insurer would pay a large fraction up front, when the patient is treated, and then make regular payments until the entire bill is paid — or the disease returns.
That would require an unprecedented type of cooperation among insurers. Patients often change insurers, and there is no benefit to a new insurer in continuing payments for an injection that a patient had long ago — even if it was curative.