Today’s Managing Health Care Costs Number is $1.15 billion
Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals is in the news again; Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times has noted that the company did not disclose FTC queries about anticompetitive behavior in 2014 -- when the company was considering acquiring Questcor. Mallinckrodt just paid a $100 million fine for anticompetitive behavior.
HP Acthar Gel, the only product of Questcor when it was purchased by Mallinckrodt, is now responsible for more than a billion in annual sales. The right to manufacture this generic non-patent-protected drug was purchased by Questcor for just $100,000 in 2001, when a vial went for $40. Questcor paid Novartis $135 million in 2013 to purchase the rights to a synthetic version of the drug which is sold at a low price in Europe and Canada. Questcor turned around and just put it on a shelf – and now a single vial of HP Acthar Gel costs $38,000!
Mallinckrodt just paid the recent fine to the FTC for its anticompetitive behavior around the Questcor purchase of the rights to the synthetic competitor (without admitting guilt). A hundred million is a small price to pay for a drug where Medicare pays $162,000 a year per user!
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