http://touch.latimes.com/#section/5/article/p2p-85029059/

Need help paying for Amgen's Repatha? Get ready to give up your privacy
Amgen Inc. has triggered an uproar for imposing unusually onerous preconditions on its program to provide financial help for high-cholesterol patients prescribed Repatha.

MICHAEL HILTZIK, THE ECONOMY HUB
November 13, 2015, 8:47 p.m.

For all the talk about new opportunities for consumers to make their own healthcare decisions, much remains out of their control. Nowhere is that more evident than in the prescription drug market, where stratospheric prices can sometimes keep patients from obtaining lifesaving therapies.

That's why major drug companies have instituted programs to cover co-pays or other cost-sharing burdens for needy patients. And it's why Amgen Inc. has triggered an uproar among cardiology specialists for imposing unusually onerous preconditions on its program to provide financial help for patients prescribed Repatha, a new drug that treats chronic high LDL cholesterol (that's the "bad" cholesterol). Repatha costs more than $14,000 a year; many of its users are likely to need it all their lives.

But when it introduced its RepathaReady financial assistance program, Amgen required enrollees to provide it with access to all their personal medical information — encompassing their "entire medical file and complete patient history," and "any information ... from a healthcare provider, healthcare plan, pharmacy, pharmaceutical company, and/or contractor."

Patients are permitted to opt out at any time and end the flow of information to Amgen. If they do so, however, they will be shut out of the assistance program, which limits the cost to patients with commercial health insurance to $5 per prescription, including deductibles and co-pays. The company retains the right to use any information already submitted for 10 years.

"This is the most egregious example of overreach in the fine print that I've ever experienced," says cardiologist Peter Berger, senior vice president of clinical research at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Hospital in New York. He and other critics say they were concerned that the terms would allow Amgen to sell patients' private medical information without their further permission.

<>