A Cancer Drug's Big Price Rise Is Cause for Concern ($78 to $548 old drug)

[RamboLiberal]

http://nytimes.com/2006/03/12/business/12price.html?hp&ex=1142226000&en=e0e3e242c43c4e4c&ei=5094&partner=homepage

On Feb. 3, Joyce Elkins filled a prescription for a two-week supply of nitrogen mustard, a decades-old cancer drug used to treat a rare form of lymphoma. The cost was $77.50.

On Feb. 17, Ms. Elkins, a 64-year-old retiree who lives in Georgetown, Tex., returned to her pharmacy for a refill. This time, following a huge increase in the wholesale price of the drug, the cost was $548.01.

Ms. Elkins's insurance does not cover nitrogen mustard, which she must take for at least the next six months at a cost that will now total nearly $7,000. She and her husband, who works for the Texas Department of Transportation, are paying for the medicine by spending less on utilities and food, she said.

The medicine, also known as Mustargen, was developed more than 60 years ago and is among the oldest chemotherapy drugs. For decades, it has been blended into an ointment by pharmacists and used as a topical treatment for a cancer called cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, a form of cancer that mainly affects the skin.

[mduffy31]

1. Why is there no generic equivalent?

A drug that old should have plenty of low cost options for it.

[RamboLiberal]

2. Because so few people use it - but still f'in drug companies

make the Mafia look like pikers!

[formercia]

7. It's called Mustard Gas

same stuff Iraq used against Iran.

[reprobate]

3. Big Pharma is the perfedt arguement against corporations.

In just one case am I in favor of the death penalty. The corporate death penalty. Take away their Charter, void their patents, make them public domain. Then we'll see how many greedy SOB CEOs there really are.

In the past a corporate charter could be removed if the corporation acted in any way against the public interest. Increasing the price of a sixty year old drug by 700% fits that category IMO.

[ulysses]

4. agreed!

:thumbsup:

[Skittles]

5. scamming cancer patients

I don't know how those f***ing pharmo people sleep at night

[saigon68]

16. They sleep soundly

On their heated waterbeds.

And count the days until they depart on their next Carribean cruise.

[salin]

6. But Bush and the GOP tell us that limiting malpractice suits will

solve the problem of escalating costs for health care... :eyes:

[lovuian]

8. If you want to live cough up the bucks... Isn't what they are

saying... its $548 now what happens when in 6 months its 1000... Pharmaceuticals are just out of control

and America needs to rein them in... suggestion go to Canada and get your medicine...

[newswolf56]

9. The Prescription Drug Lords strike again. This...

has been going on for years -- the systemic genocide of a price-tag on life and THE chief characteristic of capitalism: the poor die, the rich live.

[Delphinus]

10. I think I've found a new tagline, newswolf56:

Capitalism: the poor die, the rich live

[newswolf56]

20. Be my guest. Though for tagline purposes, it would be better said thusly:

Capitalism: the poor die, the rich live on.

(The meter is better with the addition of "on." But -- obviously -- the choice is yours. Would like a credit-line though if you don't mind. And in any/every case thanks.)

[Cobalt Violet]

11. Seems like a deliberate plan to lower the life expectancy...

of Americans.

[rodeodance]

12. there is nothing that can explain this dramatic hike NOTHING>

.....The cost was $77.50.

On Feb. 17, Ms. Elkins, a 64-year-old retiree who lives in Georgetown, Tex., returned to her pharmacy for a refill. This time, following a huge increase in the wholesale price of the drug, the cost was $548.01.

[rodeodance]

13. here is an 'explanation" from the drug company:

......Last August, Merck, which makes Mustargen, sold the rights to manufacture and market it and Cosmegen, another cancer drug, to Ovation Pharmaceuticals, a six-year-old company in Deerfield, Ill., that buys slow-selling medicines from big pharmaceutical companies.

The two drugs are used by fewer than 5,000 patients a year and had combined sales of about $1 million in 2004.

Now Ovation has raised the wholesale price of Mustargen roughly tenfold and that of Cosmegen even more, according to several pharmacists and patients.

Sean Nolan, vice president of commercial development for Ovation, said that the price increases were needed to invest in manufacturing facilities for the drugs. He said the company was petitioning insurers to obtain coverage for patients.

[Solon]

14. Its a fucking pyramid scheme...

These assholes play with peoples lives for profit, fuck them, they should die brutal deaths from untreated cancer themselves.

[sam sarrha]

17. you never know what dying desperate people will do when they have nothing

to lose.. and little time to lose it in..

[4dsc]

19. Puke alert, Check out their web site,

Here what it states on Ovations web site, it'll make you puke,

One promise: Improving the lives of patients suffering from severe illnesses and ensuring that patients and physicians will have access to needed therapies.

Improving lives buy raising costs!!

http://www.ovationpharma.com/

Email these bastards at [e-mail]

[jmowreader]

22. Manufacturing facilities for THIS STUFF?

You build a little shed, put a scale in it, and buy a drum of mustard gas from the Army. It's not that complicated.

For added entertainment, google up the package insert for Mustargen. Count the number of times "this drug is HIGHLY TOXIC" appears. Too bad they don't put "this is a chemical warfare agent" in there somewhere.

[Solon]

15. Perfect argument for Federal Price Controls on drugs...

Fuck these companies trying to increase their profit margins, or even preserve them, I don't give a flying fuck about the free market, I say we control the prices ourselves, NOT have them set by these fucking greedy vultures.

[sam sarrha]

18. Phat chance..

[4dsc]

21. Not price controls but COMPETITION!!

The biggest thing that scares pharma's would be competition!!

[northzax]

23. not sure how much competition there would be for something like this

only a couple of hundred people in the country use it, total annual sales will be something like $500,000, not profit, gross. That's not so attractive to another company entering the marketplace.

[Solon]

24. exactly, these types of situations damn near require government...

intervention to prevent private market based abuse, period. Price controls, or Nationalization of said services would alleviate the problems.

[susanna]

25. That is profoundly obscene.

I mean that in the strictest dictionary sense of the term.