Yet another prescription drug vital to quality of life has had its price hiked to an outrageous amount due to pharmaceutical company greed.
One month after California proposed legalizing physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, the makers of the drug used in this process, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, doubled the price—to $3,000.
Called Seconal, the drug was originally used in the 1930s as a sleep aid until a rise of fatal overdoses, especially when coupled with alcohol, made it clear it wasn’t safe for widespread use. But as a lethal medication, it’s the top choice among physicians for how quickly and gently it works to hasten death and decrease suffering for people with terminal illnesses.
Often when drug companies are accused of hiking prices for selfish reasons, they claim it’s due to an increased cost of research. Seconal, however, has been around for nearly a century with no evidence of any recent ongoing research or development.
In 2009, the price of a lethal dose of Seconal was $200 and steadily increased over the next six years until it reached $1,500. Once Valeant bought the drug last February, the company immediately doubled the price, charging a whopping $3,000 for one lethal dose.
Valeant bought a number of other drugs at the same time it purchased Seconal and raised the prices of those as well, in some cases by as much as 500 percent. A congressional investigation into the company’s pricing practices has since ensued, and the CEO, J. Michael Pearson, resigned Monday amid ongoing questioning about the company’s accounting practices.
Unsurprisingly, Pearson has no medical background, just a wealth of experience finagling finances in his favor. After spending 23 years as a McKinsey consultant, he moved to Valeant where he quickly schemed to transfer the company’s patent portfolios overseas to avoid paying U.S. taxes.
Featured image via Flikr by Rodriga Senna available under a Creative Commons license.
