Even an absolutely healthy (or, rather, under-examined) person has to take medicine from time to time to relieve a headache or a toothache. Although most drugs are expensive, you do not need to take out a loan or sell a kidney to buy them.
However, the cost of some drugs can be disheartening not only for the average Russian, but also for the very wealthy. We present you the top 10 most expensive drugs in the world.
10. Ilaris
The price per one year course for 1 patient varies from $ 379,000 to $ 462,000.
Ilaris is an injectable immunosuppressive drug approved for the treatment of acute gouty arthritis, systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis in young children, and cryopyrin-associated periodic syndrome (CAPS), a group of rare diseases caused by mutations in certain genes.
People with CAPS often have bouts of fever and inflammation without standard causes such as infections or viruses.
9. Demser
The annual course costs between $ 96,000 and $ 472,000.
Patients with pheochromocytoma, a hormone-active adrenal tumor, produce excessive amounts of norepinephrine and adrenaline, which raise blood pressure. To prevent this condition, patients with pheochromocytoma are forced to take a drug called Demser.
It is also used for long-term treatment of symptoms associated with a tumor.
8. Folotyn
Costs approximately 345,000 - 500,000 per year, per patient.
It is a last resort drug for those with recurrent or refractory peripheral T-cell lymphoma, a rare and extremely aggressive cancer. It is applied only if other methods of treatment have failed.
At the same time, even the use of Folotin does not guarantee an improvement in survival without progression of the disease or at least a general extension of the patient's life expectancy.
7. Soliris
The price tag for 1 patient per year is $ 600,000.
This medicine is used to treat genetic diseases, one of the most expensive groups of diseases. Soliris can be prescribed in case of:
- a rare and life-threatening chronic blood disorder called Atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome. It affects both children and adults, and leads to constant activation of the part of the immune system, which is responsible for the destruction of infectious agents and the removal of dead cells. Simply put, the immune system begins to attack the body's own healthy tissues.
- Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria. The rarity of this condition is evidenced by the fact that for every million people there are no more than 15.9 cases of PNH. In patients, blood cells begin to die during sleep. Why - no one knows.
At one time Soliris was considered the most expensive drug in the world, but now there are drugs, in comparison with which Soliris is given almost for nothing.
In 2019, Russian media reported that the pharmaceutical company Generium had registered a Russian analogue of Soliris (eculizumab). It's called Elizaria and will cost a quarter less than the original. All components of the drug, including the production of the substance for it, are domestic. This is the most expensive drug in Russia.
6. Lumizyme
The price of the annual course is $ 650,000.
One of the most expensive medicines in the world is used to treat Pompe disease, in which a person disrupts the breakdown of glycogen in nerve and muscle cells.
This is due to the fact that the patient's body lacks an enzyme called "acidic α-1,4-glucosidase". And Lumizim (aka alglucosidase alpha) replaces the missing enzyme.
If left untreated, Pompe disease can lead to death from heart or respiratory failure in children. If the disease occurs in adulthood, the person slowly loses his sight due to myopia, and he has liver damage.
5. Brineura
The annual course of treatment will cost $ 700,000.
Brineira is a super-expensive medicine that is used in the treatment of late childhood Batten's disease (aka Bilshevsky-Jansky disease). It is quite rare, in about 1 person in 200,000. With this hereditary pathology, vision rapidly deteriorates to the point of complete blindness, there are often seizures that cannot be relieved by medication, and the patient's motor activity is seriously impaired.
Although Brineira does not provide a complete cure, it slows the onset of disability and relieves symptoms in young patients 3 years and older.
4. Luxturna
The cost of treatment is $ 850,000.
Loss of vision is one of the worst ills that can happen to a person. The prospect of being forever in the dark isn't as daunting as having to part with $ 850,000. If, of course, you have them.
The developer of the drug, Spark Therapeutics, originally planned to sell its development for $ 1 million. But then she reduced her appetites at the insistence of insurance companies.
A miraculous drug, whose principle of action is based on gene therapy, does not restore sight to everyone, but only to those who are struck by a rare inherited form of blindness. For example, in the United States, about 2,000 people suffer from it.
To cure blindness, a single injection of Luxturna in each eye is enough (425 thousand dollars per injection, respectively). This new product compares favorably with other drugs that need to be taken for a long time, or even a lifetime.
3. Ravicti
The cost of one year of treatment for a patient is $ 1.2 million.
Since June 2010, the drug Ravikti has received the status of "medicine for orphans" (a remedy used for rare diseases).
Ravikti is used to treat patients with urea cycle disorders. And although the name of the disease does not sound serious, there is a great danger behind it.
- Patients lack some liver enzymes, making the body unable to get rid of nitrogen waste.
- As a result, toxic ammonia begins to accumulate in the blood of adults and children.
- This can lead to permanent brain damage, coma and death.
2. Carbaglu
For an annual course, you will have to pay about $ 1.3 million.
The human liver contains an enzyme with the long name N-Acetylglutamate synthase. It is responsible for the processing of excess nitrogen, which is formed during the metabolism of proteins. And with hyperammonemia, this enzyme is not enough, and ammonia, aka nitrogen hydride, quickly accumulates in the blood. This leads to coma and subsequent death.
It is this dangerous condition that prevents the drug Karbaglu. And given that the lack of an enzyme is a lifelong condition, this drug will have to be taken as long as the patient lives.
1. Zolgensma
The price of the most expensive drug in the world is $ 2.1 million.
This drug received the green light in the US as recently as May 2019 for the treatment of pediatric spinal muscular atrophy. Zolgensma replaces the mutated “defective” gene with a functional one.
For a complete cure of the disease, just one intravenous injection is enough, but it is fantastically expensive. And the remedy is targeted at a very small group of people, because around the world about 2500-3500 children suffer from spinal muscular atrophy. This disease progresses rapidly, and by the age of two, sick children who do not receive the necessary treatment usually die of respiratory failure.