Doctors and tuberculosis patients in Canada were recently shocked when the price of an essential medication for drug-resistant TB went through a sudden hike for no apparent reason.
The critical drug cycloserine is used to treat a rare and dangerous form of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. The price of cycloserine went from $15 US per pill to $360 US overnight in North America.
”People associated with the TB community in North America are in trouble over the last week when they realised the price had gone up by over 2,000 per cent,” said Amir Attaran, a professor of law and medicine at the University of Ottawa who specializes in drug policy.
Dr Dina Fisher, medical director of the Calgary Tuberculosis Centre said it’s part of a trend in the pharmaceutical industry of small companies buying up old, off-patent drugs and jacking up the price.
She further said that when she saw an email on the 2,000 percent increase, she thought it was a typo.”I was shocked at the percentage increase in a drug that’s really essential for some of our patients,” Fisher said.