$10 + Government Meddling = $1,500

Written by Brian Garst, Posted in Free Markets, Government Meddling, Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

And not in the good way.

A drug for high-risk pregnant women has cost about $10 to $20 per injection. Next week, the price shoots up to $1,500 a dose, meaning the total cost during a pregnancy could be as much as $30,000.

That’s because the drug, a form of progesterone given as a weekly shot, has been made cheaply for years, mixed in special pharmacies that custom-compound treatments that are not federally approved.

But recently, KV Pharmaceutical of suburban St.Louis won government approval to exclusively sell the drug, known as Makena (Mah-KEE’-Nah). The March of Dimes and many obstetricians supported that because it means quality will be more consistent and it will be easier to get.

None of them anticipated the dramatic price hike, though…

Of course they didn’t, because they don’t think about the consequences for their feel-good meddling.

Makena is a synthetic form of the hormone progesterone that first came on the market more than 50 years ago to treat other problems. Hormone drugs came under fire in the 1970s, following reports they might damage fetuses in early pregnancy. In the 1990s, the early incarnation of Makena was withdrawn from the market.

But the drug got a new life in 2003, with publication of a study that reported it helped prevent early births to women who had a history of spontaneous preterm deliveries.

…The study of women at risk for this condition found that only about 36 percent of those given the progesterone drug had preterm births, compared with 55 percent among those not on the drug.

…To get FDA approval, the company is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in additional research, including an international study involving 1,700 women, Divis said. The FDA last month signed off and gave Makena orphan drug status. That designation ensures Ther-Rx will be the sole source of the drug for seven years.

I’d say that the fools got what they deserve for wanting their precious “FDA approved” in front of what was already a perfectly good and safe drug, but really it’s the rest of us that will bear the costs through increased insurance premiums and entitlement subsidies, or loss of access to a beneficial drug.

It just amazes me that the doctors in the article, who are presumably intelligent people, are shocked and surprised that adding an expensive approval process and a government granted monopoly would make something more expense.

How can we ever hope to create good public policy with so much economic illiteracy to contend with?

drugs FDA