The Briefing Room
General Category => Health/Education => Topic started by: rangerrebew on January 18, 2018, 03:46:07 pm
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Cancer industry drug company ruthlessly raises cancer drug price by 1400% to price gouge patients
Wednesday, January 17, 2018 by: Isabelle Z.
(Natural News) Dealing with cancer is devastating enough on its own, but when the drug your doctors have told you that you need costs a ridiculous amount of money, it adds even more stress to an already traumatic situation. Unfortunately, this is the sad reality for the many people who need lomustine, a drug that can be a lifesaver for patients suffering from Hodgkin’s lymphoma and brain tumors.
The drug was sold for years as CeeNU for around $50 a capsule until Bristol-Myers Squib sold it to NextSource. The ruthless startup then raised the price of the drug nine times, bringing its current price to $768 per pill and rebranding it as Gleostine. This is an increase of 1400 percent and far higher than the inflation rate, and it’s an example of pharmaceutical company greed as its worst.
https://www.naturalnews.com/2018-01-17-cancer-industry-drug-company-raises-cancer-drug-price-by-1400.html (https://www.naturalnews.com/2018-01-17-cancer-industry-drug-company-raises-cancer-drug-price-by-1400.html)
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It may be called "free enterprise", but this is where "socialized medicine" eventually comes from...
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Seems to me that there is a basis for imposing some level of control on the prices charged for patented medicines. Generally, price controls are anathema to an efficient free market; however, in the case of patented medicines, the market is already significantly distorted by non-market forces (i.e., by the government) and therefore some degree of price control would not represent an initial interference in an otherwise uncontrolled market.
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"Lomustine has never been turned into a generic drug despite no longer being under patent protection..."
What is stopping other companies from jumping in? Costly regulations?