Posted by Michael Wonder on 07 Apr 2017
How pharmaceutical companies game the system to keep drugs expensive
6 April 2017 - I help the University of Utah hospital system manage its drug budgets and medication use policies, and in 2015 I got sticker shock.
Our annual inpatient pharmacy cost for a single drug skyrocketed from $300,000 to $1.9 million. That’s because the drug maker Valeant suddenly increased the price of isoproterenol from $440 to roughly $2,700 a dose.
Isoproterenol is a heart drug. It helps with heart attacks and shock and works to keep up a patient’s blood pressure. With the sudden price increase, we were forced to remove isoproterenol from our 100 emergency crash carts. Instead, we stocked our pharmacy backup boxes, located on each floor of our hospitals, to have the vital drug on hand if needed. We had to minimise costs without impacting patient care.
