A drug for high-risk pregnant women has cost about $10 to $20 per injection. Next week, the price shoots up to $1,500 a dose, meaning the total cost during a pregnancy could be as much as $30,000.
That's because the drug, a form of progesterone given as a weekly shot, has been made cheaply for years, mixed in special pharmacies that custom-compound treatments that are not federally approved.
But recently, KV Pharmaceutical of suburban St.Louis won government approval to exclusively sell the drug, known as Makena (Mah-KEE'-Nah). The March of Dimes and many obstetricians supported that because it means quality will be more consistent and it will be easier to get.
None of them anticipated the dramatic price hike, though — especially since most of the cost for development and research was shouldered by others in the past.
Let's not forget that 1) some health insurance companies do not, in fact, cover birth expenses, and this could drive the cost of having a baby to more than many moms make in a year, 2) Medicaid does, especially for women who may be at higher risk for pre-term births because of poverty and lower all-around health, and this is going to shoot up costs and burden and already fragile system of care, and 3) this drug company didn't develop a new drug, it's just selling its own formulation exclusively and putting a big fat price tag on it. Unfortunately, while the FDA can approve the drug, it doesn't have any say on the price.
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