Pregnancy drug's sharp price hike called 'greed' (From $10 to $1500)

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


The revelation this week that the cost of a popular drug to help prevent preterm labor is going to go up 100 times its current price has stunned pregnant women, their doctors and pharmacists in Western Pennsylvania.

"I'm ready to have a heart attack," Janice Watkins, a Pittsburgh resident who is pregnant and has been taking the generic drug known as 17P, said Thursday after she learned of the price increase from her doctor's office. "I'm nervous now because I have to go home and call my insurance company to see if they'll cover me."

Typical doses of 17P that now cost $10 to $20 per dose will have a list price of $1,500 under the brand name Makena. That's because KV Pharmaceutical of suburban St. Louis last month won government approval to exclusively market and sell Makena, a synthetic version of the hormone progesterone.

Doctors and health care advocates are worried that because of the massive price increase, some women who need the drug will not be able to afford it or their insurance companies will no longer cover it.





Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11070/1131217-114.stm

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In the wake of growing public outrage over the 150-fold increase in the price of a drug used to prevent premature birth — newly approved Makena, a form of progesterone, will cost $1,500 a dose compared with $10 for existing versions — Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) has sent a letter to manufacturer KV Pharmaceuticals asking the company to "immediately reconsider" its pricing.

"I am deeply concerned that your company appears to be taking advantage of FDA approval at the expense of women, children and federal and state budgets," Brown wrote.

In an email, Brown said, "By ratcheting up prices, fewer women will be able to afford the drug, increasing rates of preterm birth nationwide. This isn't in the interest of children, new mothers or taxpayers."

Progesterone has been prescribed for other purposes for decades — but when large controlled trials showed that a long-acting form called 17-hydroxyprogesterone caproate could prevent premature birth in the mid-2000s, that compound was given "orphan drug" status by the FDA so that it could be developed for approval for this use. In the meanwhile, specialty pharmacies called "compounding pharmacies" were allowed to sell it.



Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/03/11/kv-backlash-senator-condemns-pregnancy-drug-price-hike/#ixzz1GMk2uvSx

Wait I thought Republicans loved the fetus! Why crickets from the GOP on this example of pure out and out greed?

[Skip_In_Boulder]

1. That's not a price hike, that's gouging. n/t

[blackspade]

2. There is no greed the repugs don't like!

[diane in sf]

3. might be time to use unpatentable natural progesterone--added bonus--fewer side effects.

[Waiting For Everyman]

4. This practice right here is the real threat to Medicare, Medicaid, and health care in general.

Instead of making this (ludicrous padding of cost) illegal, we cut other necessities to pay for it. It's nothing but a stickup without a gun. THEFT.

This, and CEOs setting their own pay scales at ridiculous levels, is a big chunk of our problems. Why do we let them? Why SHOULD WE let them? This is nonsense.

Why screw around? Why not $1mil for a dose of this drug? Why not $1mil for an aspirin? One number is as ridiculous as the other, so why not? This is why we need laws - the kind of laws we used to have which these guys got repealed to allow them to do this.

Instead of looking for cuts to pay for this kind of thing, we need to make it illegal - and roll back the overcharging that already exists too. That done, plus single payer, then we'll get somewhere with the health care problem AND the deficit.

[libmom74]

5. +1,000

[sarcasmo]

6. Greed, one of the many downfalls of this country.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

7. Further proof that corporations are not amoral, but are in fact immoral...

It is also another good example of why we need to regulate the SHIT out of the pharmaceutical industry and every other industry and corporation for that matter.
Duckie