An old drug gets a ridiculously high price….again

Are incentives for so-called "orphan drugs" being misused to jack up the price of one medication by 4000 percent?

Photo by Chris Potter

A rare form of muscular dystrophy has long been treated in the US by a steroid imported from overseas at a price of $1200 a year. Now the FDA has approved its manufacture and distribution in this country by the drug company Marathon. The new price is $89,000 a year — reduced to $54,000 after rebates and discounts. We get perspective from Carolyn Johnson, who covers the business of medicine for the Washington Post, and Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, a professor of medicine at Harvard, where he's also Director of the program on Regulation, Therapeutics and Law.