For 16k you could hire a full time nanny who helps the mother care for the newborn in the first weeks/months. How effective is the drug in comparison to providing assistance like that?
Stop trolling. Everything I said is true. The very expensive drugs you're seeing in the US are generally ones that won't be available in Europe for a long time, no matter how much money you bring to the table. If you really want them, you'll end up spending more money than your American counterparts because you'll also have to buy a plane ticket to fly over.
Then take the success probability and multiply it by the value a woman would expect from being free of PPD. I'd wager it's still considerably higher than $16k.
I'm noting it's less clear than other expensive things like the meds that cure hep c. In that case, you're weighing the cost of a near certain cure. I've not seen any sort of depression med with that kind of clarity of effectiveness.
The FDA's press release didn't say anything about the success rate, only that the test group had significantly lower levels of depression than the control group. It's true that a lot of antidepressants fail to improve symptoms in a lot of people. The effectiveness of this particular drug better be outstanding, otherwise Biogen-Sage won't be able to justify the high price compared to other antidepressants.
The price of the pill must be weighed against the effectiveness of the pill. A 15k treatment can't just be 10% better than placebo to be cost-effective, it needs to be better than any other use of 15k to be justified.