Zolgensma: What a $2 Million Per Dose Gene Therapy Reveals About Drug Pricing

The gene therapy Zolgensma has helped children born with a fatal disease, spinal muscular atrophy, grow up to run and play. But the cost is stunning: $2 million per dose. The drug’s price set the standard for other, even more expensive gene therapies — like one that goes for $4.25 million per dose. Taxpayers and charities subsidized much of the science that led to Zolgensma. Yet executives, venture-capital backers and a pharma giant reaped the profits. Meanwhile, the drug’s cost adds to the nation’s ballooning bill for prescription drugs and puts Zolgensma out of reach for kids in many low- and middle-income countries. Zolgensma’s story upends the widely held conception that high prices reflect huge industry investments in innovation. To read our investigation, go to https://propub.li/41gHDf5 📰: Robin Fields 🎨: Owen Gent, special to ProPublica 🎥: Jose Sepulveda - ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force. Donate to support our work: https://propub.li/3WE9AMv Sign up for our weekly newsletter: http://propub.li/2oyN8DY Follow us on X/Twitter:   / propublica   Follow us on Instagram:   / propublica   Follow us on TikTok:   / propublica   Follow us on Facebook:   / propublica   Follow us on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@propublica Follow us on Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@ProPublica Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/propublica.org Join our WhatsApp broadcast channel: https://propub.li/whatsapp