The generic Daraprim, pyrimethamine, was approved by the FDA in March. The list price is around the same as the brand-name version, according to the website GoodRx. With coupons, the generic can be acquired more cheaply — around $183 per pill, or more than $16,000 for a course — but is still more than 13 times higher than the original brand-name price five years ago.
Vyera has vowed to provide it free to the uninsured and said many insured patients should be able to acquire it for a $10 copay. But the list price still matters, as some patients, including seniors on Medicare, often have to pay a percentage of a drug’s total price. And insurers’ costs are closer to the full price, which later can raise consumers’ premiums.
Daraprim wasn’t the only old drug that underwent shocking price hikes around the same time. The company formerly known as Valeant Pharmaceuticals, now Bausch Health, faced similar scrutiny for increasing the prices of blood pressure and heart disease medications by 3,100 percent and 6,700 percent, respectively, from 2012 to 2015. More well-known products — like insulin for diabetes, Naloxone for opioid overdoses and the EpiPen for serious allergic reactions — also saw well-publicized price increases.
When an original brand-name drug loses its patent protections, generic versions may enter the market and compete for sales based on lower prices. But when there are relatively few patients — such as for toxoplasmosis, which affected around 2,000 patients in 2015 — the market often doesn't work that way.
Development of generics
Immediately after the Daraprim controversy and through the start of the Trump administration, policymakers focused on how to encourage generic competition that could potentially deter price increases.
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September 09, 2020 at 05:03PM
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Drug price spikes still unchecked, five years after controversy - Roll Call
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