Prescription (Valeant Pharmaceuticals) skin drug costs skyrocket

[kristopher]

Prescription skin drug costs skyrocket
Thursday - Nov. 26, 2015
By The Associated Press


WASHINGTON — The cost of prescription skin treatments has skyrocketed since 2009 as the burden of escalating drug prices weighs more on family budgets.

Retail prices have surged 401 percent since 2009 for brand-name drugs for skin conditions, according to research published in JAMA Dermatology, a medical journal. That compares to an overall inflation rate of just 11 percent during the same period.

Of the 19 brand-name drugs analyzed in the study published this week, price hikes have been most extreme for two drugs made by Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc., which has been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors for documents tied to its pricing and practices. It is under investigation by several members of Congress. The Canada-based company has acquired smaller drug developers and then raised prices of their medicines.

Costs for Valeant's Targretin gel skin cancer treatment have shot up 18-fold during the past six years to $30,320 per 60-gram tube. Prices for a separate Valeant skin cancer cream, Carac cream, also surged 18 times to $2,865 for a 30-gram tube.

But the study found that...

http://triblive.com/usworld/nation/9519969-74/prices-skin-drugs

[PatrickforO]

1. Yep, that Shkreli started it, took a bunch of flack.

But you know what? He hasn't reduced the price of his AIDS drug one penny.

Now these turds are doing it too.

THIS IS WHY WE NEED A SINGLE PAYER SYSTEM ASAP. Too many people dying for the sake of some dirtbag's profits.

[Turbineguy]

2. I just

paid $170 for a tube of generic fluorouracil. Now I know why. But it's stil relatively cheap at Costco by comparison.

[HereSince1628]

3. "all the traffic will bear" is terrible under "do whatever it takes"

add patent protections and the combination of monopoly and inapplicability of normal rules for demand and the outcome reveals one of the worst failings of capitalism.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. Thank goodness the President did what it took to get Big Pharma onboard with the ACA.

Apparently we now see what 'doing what it takes' leads to.