A couple posts ago I linked to an article about the recent FDA regulation of the progesterone/17P drug. This regulation has taken away compounding rights from pharmacies and bestowed them to one, single company (KV Pharmaceuticals), who subsequently increased the price from $10-$20 to upwards of $1,500 per dose even though this drug is well past the R&D stage and has been used for years. Instead of costing $200-$400, patients/insurance companies are now faced with a cost of $30,000 to treat a full-term pregnancy. March of Dimes was mentioned in the article as a supporter of the FDA ruling. How convenient that March of Dimes receives hundreds of thousands of dollars from Ther-Rx, a KV subsidiary. I'm not saying I believe March of Dimes condones this behavior (see here for a letter written by MOD to KV), or even supported the FDA ruling with ill intent. But clearly they've aligned themselves with a company and a purpose without giving full consideration to all possible eventualities of that support.
Please take the time to read this blog post. This woman sums it up quite nicely and it's worth the read. In her post she provides several ways to contact and voice opposition to this shady deal. Please consider that even if you've never directly benefited from this drug, the price increase does concern you because your insurance companies and/or government will ultimately pick up the tab. Even worse is the possibility that thousands of premature births, that previously were preventable, will now not be because it is cost prohibitive.
I'm still unbelievably disgusted. Especially with March of Dimes's connection. I've not gotten word yet on whether my insurance company has approved the shots this time around. But either way the problem is much larger than just me.
*Edited to add* that KV has created a patient assistance program that provides the drug at discounted or no cost for those who qualify. You can see their announcement here. While this is a step in the right direction, it still excludes many women. Who is crazy enough to think that any household making a penny more than $100k a year can afford to drop $30k on a single drug for pregnancy? I've also looked a bit more into the orphan drug status. This is a great article if you're interested in reading. I know there have been a lot of them in this post.
Please take the time to read this blog post. This woman sums it up quite nicely and it's worth the read. In her post she provides several ways to contact and voice opposition to this shady deal. Please consider that even if you've never directly benefited from this drug, the price increase does concern you because your insurance companies and/or government will ultimately pick up the tab. Even worse is the possibility that thousands of premature births, that previously were preventable, will now not be because it is cost prohibitive.
I'm still unbelievably disgusted. Especially with March of Dimes's connection. I've not gotten word yet on whether my insurance company has approved the shots this time around. But either way the problem is much larger than just me.
*Edited to add* that KV has created a patient assistance program that provides the drug at discounted or no cost for those who qualify. You can see their announcement here. While this is a step in the right direction, it still excludes many women. Who is crazy enough to think that any household making a penny more than $100k a year can afford to drop $30k on a single drug for pregnancy? I've also looked a bit more into the orphan drug status. This is a great article if you're interested in reading. I know there have been a lot of them in this post.
1 comment:
Machel just posted about this too - I've been reading your posts and wholeheartedly agree with your stance on MOD. I'm not so impressed. Hopefully they wake up and listen.
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