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from the identical-drug-Synacthen-in-Canada-costs-about-$33 dept.
Television station WSB-TV 2 in Atlanta, Georgia reports Metro city sues drug manufacturer over '97,500% price increase' for seizure medicine:
The city of Marietta, Georgia is suing drug manufacturer Mallinckrodt after Mallinckrodt increased the price of the drug Acthar by 97,500%.
"Acthar used to cost $40, but Mallinckrodt has raised the price of the drug to over $39,000 per vial," the city claims in its lawsuit. "This eye-popping 97,500% price increase is the result of unlawful and unfair conduct by Mallinckrondt. The City has expended over $2 million for just one patient covered by the city's self-funded health plan."
Atlanta pharmacist Ira Katz said Acthar is what's called a "biologic" and they can be classified as specialty drugs.
"They put them into the specialty class, and the prices are outrageous, just outrageous," Katz said.
The company sent a response to the station's request for comment. In part, it states:
In 2017, Mallinckrodt specifically offered to work with representatives for the City of Marietta in response to inquiries the City had made about the price of Acthar. The City declined to meaningfully participate in that process.
"Mallinckrodt acquired Acthar in August 2014, well after the price increase you reference in 2007 was undertaken by Questcor, the previous owner of Acthar. Under our stewardship, any price adjustments to Acthar have been limited to the mid-single digit percentage range. We want to help ensure patients have access to and can benefit from our therapies. That's why we offer significant discounts to many payers and customers, which the prior owner did not. Additionally, Mallinckrodt offers a range of robust free drug and commercial copay assistance options for patients, in compliance with applicable laws.
Apparently, there is a long history of complaints about the pricing for Acthar. See, for example, this December 2016 story in The New York Times. Here's another where CBS' 60 Minutes did an investigation. Then there are these two June 2018 stories from CNN. The focus of the first story is an overview of this drug's price and history. The second story has as its focus the impact on a single child and his family.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 18 2020, @02:33PM (1 child)
Capitalism doesn't seems to be operating as a free market in this case as it operates on a state mandated monopoly through patents. No one is allowed to compete. If that system is undesireable, it would require adjusting the system. In my experience capitalism is not really good at progress in itself. The areas that make progress seems to be those that a state drops a pile of money on, either making companies fight as a flock of pirahnas to get the cash or a company is selected as the best candidate in a competing bid. If you want things done, capitalism seems to have no effect on that, but only serve as the machine performing tasks, the initiative comes from the state or in effect society for those who have negative connotation on the word state and government, justified or not. I think disruptive is a myth and at best a confusing concept. If we consentrate it down to someone who finds a more efficient way of doing things, that's great and it's how things always worked in competition, but as I've seen the word distruptive used it's a random ideafactory wasting a lot of resources.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 19 2020, @12:38AM
FYI, the synthesis and safety of adrenocorticotropic hormone [wikipedia.org] (which is the active substance in Acthar and Synacthen) is no longer under the protection of a patent, nor does it need to pass the FDA certification.
So, in this particular case:
- no patent monopoly
- no high barrier of entry to justify increased prices to cover the certification cost.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford