Talk about conflicting interests. According to the AP, KV Pharmaceutical of suburban St. Louis won government approval to exclusively sell the drug, known as Makena.
The story reports that the price of the drug will increase from $20 to $1,500 per injection. "That's a huge increase for something that can't be costing them that much to make. For crying out loud, this is about making money," said Dr. Roger Snow, deputy medical director for Massachusetts' Medicaid program.” (So does Dr. Snow work for free?)
KV Pharmaceutical touts this as (ultimately) a cost-saver; and of course private insurance premiums will go up, as will our tax bills, to pay for this. The company points out that it will have spent “hundreds of millions” gaining FDA approval and we can only guess what the product liability for a preemie-prevention drug would be. Somewhere John Edwards is licking his chops. Interesting to note that the March of Dimes supports this government approval – and gets a lot of money from the company that will benefit. And now doctors will be encouraged to use the more expensive name-brand, rather than incur malpractice wrath should there be an adverse outcome with the generic. And there are always adverse outcomes.
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