Posted by Michael Wonder on 21 Aug 2017
Hikma hikes price of US medicines by up to 430%
20 August 2017 - Hikma, the London-listed generic drug maker, has sharply increased the price of a string of medicines in the US — including a diarrhoea treatment that has risen 430% — in the latest instance of “gouging”.
West-Ward Pharmaceuticals, the US division of Hikma, raised the price of six of its drugs at the start of the month by between 75 per cent and 430%, according to figures seen by the Financial Times. The mean increase was 237%.
The average wholesale price of a 60ml bottle of liquid atropine with diphenoxylate, a common diarrhoea drug better-known by the old brand name Lomotil, went from about $16 a bottle to $84 — meaning a single dose of the 35-year-old medicine now works out at $14.
