Drug Goes From $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight [View all]
Source: New York Times
Specialists in infectious disease are protesting a gigantic overnight increase in the price of a 62-year-old drug that is the standard of care for treating a life-threatening parasitic infection.
The drug, called Daraprim, was acquired in August by Turing Pharmaceuticals, a start-up run by a former hedge fund manager. Turing immediately raised the price to $750 a tablet from $13.50, bringing the annual cost of treatment for some patients to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“What is it that they are doing differently that has led to this dramatic increase?” said Dr. Judith Aberg, the chief of the division of infectious diseases at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She said the price increase could force hospitals to use “alternative therapies that may not have the same efficacy.”
Turing’s price increase is not an isolated example. While most of the attention on pharmaceutical prices has been on new drugs for diseases like cancer, hepatitis C and high cholesterol, there is also growing concern about huge price increases on older drugs, some of them generic, that have long been mainstays of treatment.
Although some price increases have been caused by shortages, others have resulted from a business strategy of buying old neglected drugs and turning them into high-priced “specialty drugs.”
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/business/a-huge-overnight-increase-in-a-drugs-price-raises-protests.html
This Drug has been in use since 1953.
Pharma firm hikes life-saving drug price by 5,500%
The medical community is outraged by a 5,500 percent price hike for Daraprim, after a big NY-based pharmaceutical company purchased the patent for it. The drug has been on the market for over 60 years, and can be essential to certain AIDS and cancer treatments.
The New York-based Turing Pharmaceuticals raised the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill in just over a month after buying the rights for the drug from Impax Laboratories.
The drug is used to treat toxoplasmosis, the second most common food-borne disease that affects patients suffering from AIDS and cancer. It has been produced since 1953 and is on the WHO List of Essential Medicines. But now medical associations are beating their drums about the sudden price hike and potential affordability of Daraprim as a treatment.
http://www.rt.com/usa/316046-pharma-daraprim-price-hike/
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