Drug Prices

Guest: Joel Hay, Professor of Pharmaceutical at the University of Southern California Daraprim is the brand name of a generic medicine used to treat a parasitic infection called toxoplasmosis that is really dangerous to people with weakened immune systems, like people with AIDS or cancer. So it’s a smallish group of people who need the drug, but those who need it, really need it. And recently, the price of Daraprim has gone up from around $18 a pill to $750.  The small pharmaceutical company that recently bought the drug and hiked the price several thousand percent has taken a lot of heat – and even been accused of price gouging. But the thing is, it’s not the first company to acquire a drug and raise the price tag. There have been far more significant examples in recent years, all perfectly legal under the US system of drug regulation.