Daraprim Price Increase: The Effect On Generic Drug Costs

October 01 01:00 2015 by ushadmin

The week of Sept. 21, 2015, saw a flurry of stories about the escalating cost of drugs in the U.S. marketplace. These stories were all initiated by Turing Pharmaceuticals buyout of the drug Daraprim (NY Times Story) and the decision to increase the price per tablet from USD 13.50 to USD 750.00. Turing’s stated reason for the price increase was the fact that the drug is only distributed to about 2,000 users nationally, and therefore at USD 13.50 the drug was not profitable. However, Daraprim is a generic drug that has been on the market for over 70 years, and therefore it is open to competition. In all likelihood, had the price increase held, Turing would have opened itself up to new competition, which would have forced the price back to a more competitive level. In reality, because Turing is currently the only manufacturer, this situation is similar to when a brand drug is coming off patent, and is still able to attract a premium price, before other competitors have time to introduce competing generics and normalize the market…