Several lawmakers are targeting the sky-high price of an old drug that cost just $50 for a bottle of 100 pills a little more than a decade ago but goes for $15,000 today.
The drug, which was once called Daranide and is now known as Keveyis, was originally approved in 1958 to treat glaucoma, although it was more recently approved to combat periodic paralysis and received orphan status. This means the drug was endorsed for a rare disorder affecting a small group of people — about 5,000 in the U.S. — and also several years of market exclusivity.
The 2015 approval triggered a huge price hike — to $13,650 — but after the drug changed hands last year, the new owner, Strongbridge Biopharma, raised the list price still higher, to $15,000, according to The Washington Post. This works out to as much as $219,000 a year per patient, depending on dosage (see page 15), and Strongbridge paid only $8.5 million.
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