Vertex CEO On Company's New Cystic Fibrosis Drug, Pricing Strategy

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated VRTX is one the forerunners of the rally in the biotech space. Stock of the company is up 50 percent in the last year and almost 200 percent in the last five years. The company recently mentioned in its 2015 business outlook that it plans to start next generation cystic fibrosis studies earlier than expected.

Vertex CEO Dr. Jeffrey Leiden was on CNBC Tuesday to talk about the company's new cystic fibrosis drug and pricing strategy.

"2015 is a very exciting year for Vertex and obviously for cystic fibrosis patients who take our medicines," Leiden said.

How Many CF Patients Can You Treat With Your Drug?

"We are really on a journey here with CF patients," Leiden replied. "Today our medicines are approved for about 3,000 patients around the world with cystic fibrosis out of a total of 75,000. What we are really excited about is we expect to get approval for our next combination of medicines in the middle of this year in the U.S. and that will allow us to expand the number of patients from 3,000 today to as many as 25,000 over the next year or two."

On the pricing of the new drug, Leiden said, "It's way too early to talk about pricing yet, we haven't even seen the label we are going to get on the approval. So, really at Vertex we focus on two things: one, getting the approval on time so we can get this medicine to patients as soon as possible, and two, making sure that every patient who needs the medicine is going to have access to it, first in the U.S. and then in Europe."