Taxpayers Helped Fund Development of a Lifesaving Drug, it Costs $2M a Dose

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

ProPublica published a list of investigations you may have missed due to America's governing turmoil. One is the story of Zolgensma, a gene therapy drug which gives baby's born with a rare disease a real chance to grow up and live normal lives. Despite being developed with help from taxpayers and nonprofit charities, the drug's maker debuted the drug with a $2-million per dose price tag, which set the stage for other gene therapy drugs to also have million dollar prices. ProPublica dug into the records to show how the drug was developed and why it debuted at such a high cost. "Its story upends the widely held conception that high prices reflect huge industry investments in innovation."

Posted by retort at 10:16 AM | 7 COMMENTS | permalink | Comment on This Entry |

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Another life saving drug only the rich will be able to afford. Life saving treatments are becoming out of reach for the 90%. Is the goal to get rid of those deemed drains on the state.

#1 | Posted by rukiddin at 2025-12-30 04:40 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 2

"I got mine, hardworking American taxpayers!"

#2 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2025-12-30 05:27 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

Why does the "healthcare" industry require more doses of Mangioni?

How many million per shot?

The population will make Mangioni freely available.

#3 | Posted by redlightrobot at 2025-12-31 10:05 AM | Reply

Unfortunately, this is true for most drugs, especially new ones.

Take for instance CAR-T therapies for cancer (and, increasingly, autoimmune and inflammatory disorders). They can cost up to $400,000 a treatment with total expenditures from the therapy itself along with hospital stay and treatment of side effects of $1 million or more in some cases.

And these are therapies that have been around for several years now and were developed by taxpayer funded academic labs.

#4 | Posted by jpw at 2025-12-31 12:41 PM | Reply

If someone has to pay 2 million dollars per dose for me to live just shoot me and get it over with. My God that's highway robbery.

#5 | Posted by LauraMohr at 2025-12-31 12:44 PM | Reply

"Its story upends the widely held conception that high prices reflect huge industry investments in innovation."

I never once thought the high price of drugs was due to the "innovation". Hell anyone can pour two chemicals together, isn't that PoS JPW a chemist or something?

As the book Abundance makes clear the issue is getting government OK, and then Liability Insurance

#6 | Posted by oneironaut at 2025-12-31 01:17 PM | Reply

If someone has to pay 2 million dollars per dose for me to live just shoot me and get it over with. My God that's highway robbery.

#5 | POSTED BY LAURAMOHR

This is an interesting point.

Boomers today would take their "generational" wealth and spend it on this drug until they were wiped out.

I know lots of GenXers thinking they will inherit from their Boomer parents. But seriously the parents are going to go broke trying to survive.

And like the great RickyBobby says - "No one lives forever, no one. But with advances in modern science and my high level income, it's not crazy to think I can live to be 245, maybe 300."

#7 | Posted by oneironaut at 2025-12-31 01:20 PM | Reply