At one time this drug was free. Now, 100 pills are $15,000.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Wonkblog

This old drug was free. Now it’s $109,500 a year.

By Carolyn Y. Johnson
December 18, 2017

For decades, Don Anderson of Seattle has been taking the same drug to help control the temporary bouts of immobility and muscle weakness caused by a rare and frightening genetic illness called periodic paralysis. ... “It's like putting a 50-pound pack on your back and standing up at the dinner table,” Anderson, 73, said. “It's like wearing lead shoes around all the time.”

The drug Anderson has been taking all these years was originally approved in 1958 and used primarily to treat the eye disease glaucoma under the brand name Daranide, its price so unremarkable that he can't quite remember how much it cost at the pharmacy counter.

But the price has been on a roller coaster in recent years — zooming from a list price of $50 for a bottle of 100 pills in the early 2000s up to $13,650 in 2015, then plummeting back down to free, before skyrocketing back up to $15,001 after a new company, Strongbridge Biopharma, acquired the drug and relaunched it this spring.

“I'm constantly hearing that public pressure, public shaming will be sufficient to curb these bad actors in these industries. It often feels if you take your attention off of them, even for a second, they'll revert to these old ways,” said Rachel Sachs, an associate law professor at Washington University in Saint Louis. “It’s just another example of how the system has some problems that need to be fixed.”
....

Carolyn Johnson is a science reporter. She previously covered the business of health and the affordability of health care to consumers. Follow https://twitter.com/carolynyjohnson

[pecosbob]

1. "It's just another example of how the system has some problems that need to be fixed."

Bit of an understatement that.

[Augiedog]

2. These aren't drug industries, they are cartels.

[erronis]

6. You are absolutely correct. And when they need to, they'll change their clothing

and come back as some new taint-free company. The scoundrels behind the corporate shields are the same (or kin to.)

In an earlier job I tried to track various drugs as the manufacturers were bought out, merged, went overseas and the drug names changed with a slight amendment to the dosage or strength.

[jmbar2]

3. Hostage takers

[demigoddess]

4. we used to buy our daughter's Synthroid medicine. It was about 20 dollars a month

then it started to be "covered by insurance" which meant we had to take it where they told us to. Their pharmacy. All of a sudden it started going up and up. First it was 40 some then 60 and finally 166 for just one months worth!!!!! so we were forced to go back to their pharmacy. We used to buy it just so the medicine would not be interrupted and she wouldn't miss doses. Now we are going through a pharmacy that recently merged with another and I am having all kinds of problems with her medicine that keeps her from hitting and biting herself all the time. I run low, I run out, and they change the dosage through not listening to me, and they send generics that I do not know if they will work. I think it has driven me half the way to suicide. Listening to her scream all day is HARD! I really hate these medical big wigs who think they are so smart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Bear Creek]

5. Earlier today

I seen an article on drug price controls is bad for your health. After reading it I thought who would be stupid enough to believe. The health care became for profit in early 70s. Time to end it.

[LW1977]

7. Fuck HMOs!

Time for single payer.

[angrychair]

8. I take a generic for seizures

That 4 years ago I used to buy a 30-day supply, without using insurance, for 50 cents and now that same drug, 30 day supply cost $90. I had to start using my insurance to pay for it again but I feel for anyone that didn’t have that option.

[Honeycombe8]

9. If the Democrats could do something about drug prices, our country would be Democratic for years.

There is such price gouging of medicines. It's outrageous. These are not consumer products like cars. These are medicines that people need to help with pain or even to stay alive.

SOMETHING needs to be done NOW. Whether it's regulation, I don't know. But if politicians could get a group together with some experts in the group, they could come up with a way to get prices under control.

This gets me so angry I can't see straight. Big Pharma PAID to get Medicare Part D done (old people buying more drugs? Great!), but then made sure that the provision prohibiting price negotiation got into the bill. That needs to be removed!

Then address the cost of medicines outside of Medicare. We need to do what the other First World countries do.

[mwooldri]

10. What could get drug prices down?

Regulate drug prices? Nice idea but suppliers can simply not make the medicine. So if there is a single manufacturer of a specific drug, they can set the price at whatever and all we can do is whinge and whine.

If drug prices are to be regulated through a drug price control board, then there needs to be a means to get the drug made in the event of a supply shortage. Maybe a nationalized drug manufacturer can do it and supply the drug at cost? Old drugs don't have patent protections. Newer drugs would need a means for the government to ignore the patent. And there would need to be some mechanism to encourage new drugs to be found without massive profits for the drug company being the main motivation.

[SoCalNative]

11. It doesn't stop them from making and selling

medicines in other countries that DO have price controls.

[Farmer-Rick]

12. Capitalism at its best

Making profit off the sick, suffering and dying. These people are weaker and can be easily exploited.

The health care insurance corporations, hospitals, clinics, doctors, pharmacies and drug corporations all making huge profits off the sick and dying.