Life-Saving Cancer Drug Sees 1400% Price Hike
CAPITALISM, 1 Jan 2018
teleSUR – TRANSCEND Media Service
The potentially life-saving medicine is used to treat patients suffering from brain tumors and Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The price hike is seen as a concern for those may now no longer be able to afford it. | Photo: Reuters
27 Dec 2017 – The price of the cancer drug lomustine has soared to nearly 1400 percent since 2013, after it was bought by a startup in Miami, U.S.
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While originally sold by Bristol-Myers Squib for decades under the brand name CeeNU for about US$50 a capsule, it now goes for US$768 per pill, thanks to startup NextSource’s price hikes.
According to Henry S. Friedman, a professor of neurosurgery at Duke University School of Medicine, NextSource has engaged in “price-gouging”, telling the Wall Street Journal, “People are not going to be able to afford it, or they’re going to pay a lot of money and have financial liability.”
The medicine is used to treat patients suffering from brain tumors and Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and can be potentially life-saving.
NextSource CEO Robert DiCrisci has justified the gargantuan price hikes by saying it sets the price based on the costs it incurs in developing the medication.
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