2,000% Drug Price Surge Is a Side Effect of FDA Safety Program
- Drugs used for decades are licensed, branded in safety drive
- Prices jump as makers given monopolies on approved versions
How Common Is It for Companies to Raise Drug Prices?
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Colchicine, a gout remedy so old that the ancient Greeks knew about its effects, used to cost about 25 cents per pill in the U.S. Then in 2010 its price suddenly jumped 2,000 percent.
That’s just one of the side effects of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration plan to encourage testing of medicines that have been around longer than the modern FDA itself, and so have never gotten formal approval. Companies that do the tests are rewarded with licenses that can temporarily give them monopoly pricing power as most rivals are eased or kicked off the market. The result has been a surge in the cost of drugs used in treatments from anesthesia to heart surgery and eye operations.