There is yet another outrageous example of a pharmaceutical company jacking up the price of a medication, without any added innovation, due to monopolizing its production.

From USA Today: Company hikes price 5000%.  Here’s an excerpt:

Turing Pharmaceuticals of New York raised the price of Daraprim from $13.50 per pill to $750 per pill last month, shortly after purchasing the rights to the drug from Impax Laboratories. Turing has exclusive rights to market Daraprim (pyrimethamine), on the market since 1953.

Daraprim fights toxoplasmosis, the second most common food-borne disease, which can easily infect people whose immune systems have been weakened by AIDS, chemotherapy or even pregnancy, according to the Centers for Disease Control.,,,

About 60 million people in the United States may carry the Toxoplasma parasite, according to the CDC. It comes from eating under-cooked meat, cooking with contaminated knives and boards, drinking unclean water and contact with infected cat feces.

Mothers can also pass it to their children during pregnancy and organ transplant patients can get it through an infected donor.

My take: This type of excessive drug cost increase is why critics demand additional regulation be placed over the entire pharmaceutical industry; it can occur only in a system which indirectly shares the cost across the entire system by having insurance companies foot most of the bill.  In my view, this increase in cost is equivalent to the water company jacking up your water bill 5000% –how would you feel about that?

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