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

[n2doc]

For four 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 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.

more

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-drug-price-20171218-story.html

[Hoyt]

1. What is so weird about many of these type of drugs is that the company will

provide it free to folks like Anderson if their insurance doesn't cover it.

Sooner or later, Congress is going to have to tackle drug costs.

If they want to cut Medicare and Medicaid, why not start by figuring out a way to control controls drug costs, while not impeding innovation. Of course, drugs are only 10% of total healthcare expenditures and some of these drugs can save tens of billions in hospital and other costs, not to mention lives and quality of life. But, something has to be done.

[BigmanPigman]

2. That smug little shithead Pharm Bro is in jail but there should be about 1,000 (at least)

other pharmaceutical price gougers in there with him. We can thank Congress for allowing this to continue. My meds are over $1,000 a month (for only two...and that is with insurance). My medical costs are over 50% of my disability income with subsidies. This is a the biggest scam corporate medicine has going. And now we get to pay more taxes so that they can get even more rich. Robber barons own Congress. Happy Holidays peasants!

[DoctorJoJo]

3. Same Thing Happened to Me on Another Drug

I was put on Colchicine for gout, a naturally occurring drug from wild flowers, that was first mentioned in scrolls in the Great Pyramids. It had been available for years as a generic at 9 cent/pill. Then a Pharma thief bought up exclusive rights and started charging 9 dollars/pill! I sent a letter about it to Sen Warren, and I don't know if it had an effect, but it is at least affordable now, under my insurance. There is a special place in hell for Big Pharma and their Repuke supporters.