Astronomical price of Mifepristone?

[25-DM-4-LYFE]

Hello, my gf recently had to buy a course of mifepristone and I was astonished to find the cost close to 600 USD, that is for less than a gram of material! I understand the price of pharmaceuticals is often inflated to cover the cost of advertising and R&D, but this drug is never advertised. I cant imagine that pure mifepristone costs much over $5/g to synthesize - am I wrong? Can anyone explain why this medicine should be so outrageously expensive?

 

[MurphyClox]

You do not pay the advertising but the R&D of the marketing company with these high prices. And not necessarily of this product but the R&D-expenses in general.

Apart from this is the synthesis of mifepristone indeed not trivial and will cost some $$$.


Peace! - Murphy

 

[vecktor]

this is RU486, and so somewhat controversial the company needs the money to buy letter bomb detectors and pay their people danger money.

the cost of synthesis is somewhere in the region of 5-10 usd per gram, ask the chinese.

 

[interleukin]

Yeah mifepristone is $600 here for 3 200mg doses. The price is probably to prevent people from chosing this method of abortion. A pretty backwards idea but I could see people abusing it if it cost only a few dollars even though this isn't something people can use safely by themselves.
On a side note, I have bought generic mifepristone on one of my trips to India. It cost only $5 per 200mg pill. I picked up 10 pills which were given to me no questions asked. I bought it for myself (I'm a dude) to restore my HPA axis after corticosteroid overuse. Mifepristone is the only anti-glucocorticoid drug that I know of marketed commercially. I like to see its use for this purpose as paralleling tamoxifen after an AAS cycle.

 

[Lolie]

It's pretty much a single purpose drug which greatly affects how it's priced (it has been trialled for other stuff but it's not going to displace existing drugs for the other conditions for which it's been trialled any time soon).

I just found an article which puts the average wholesale price at $US270, and the average price to the consumer at between $US350-$US650 through Planned Parenthood depending on location. I don't know whether that is the price for the drug plus care or for the drug alone. A quick search shows that there are generic versions available and that they are considerably cheaper.

While it's true that the R&D costs for every drug a company develops is priced into those few drugs which eventually make it to market (the majority don't), patents also influence pricing to a larger extent than people might realise. It's not just possible but quite common for drugs to still be under patent in the US which have long been out of patent elsewhere (this happened with a lot of psychoactive meds).

I can't even find a price for mifepristone here because it's not prescribed directly to the patient, it's factored into the overall cost of the termination.

 

[Runera46]

Heh found this quite amusing.

Someone has to pay for R&D....


Thank God!

 

[25-DM-4-LYFE]

none of the above answers quite satisfy my question, there are plenty of controversial medications which might warrant a pharmaceutical company shell out money for extra security, even like common stimulants like adderall succeed in pissing a great deal of people off. And if the price is simply to limit its use, then why even make it available in the first place? why attach this with the financial-cum-moral judgement? This is dose for dose the most expensive drug i have ever encountered and I just cant see why.

 

[Runera46]

I guess they decided to put a higher price on life than you seem to have.

Seems pretty cheap when you think about it...

*edit: lol not meaning to sound anti-abortionist just that indeed this product would be very hard to price-point and requires a clever marketing team. Where do you cost something that takes life... Cheap enough that anyone can afford, yet costly enough that it doesn't get too abused (Just enough to make a nice profit). Much like a speeding fine. Cheap enough anyone can afford it. But not so expensive no one ever speeds (its a nice income why abolish it).

 

[hamhurricane]

Uhoh, seems things have steered slightly into moral territory. There should be no financial punishment for people who terminate a pregnancy that would produce a child they cannot afford and do not desire. Such actions should be rewarded not penalized; the world has enough unloved and unwanted children.

Sex is natural and (almost) inevitable, speeding in an automobile is in no way comparable.

 

[Runera46]

Uhoh, seems things have steered slightly into moral territory. There should be no financial punishment for people who terminate a pregnancy that would produce a child they cannot afford and do not desire. Such actions should be rewarded not fined; the world has enough unloved and unwanted children.

I completely agree.

However I'm sure that statistically, the people who would end up abusing products like these due to complete lack of intelligence are the very people we don't want products like these to be in the hands of. Lets face it, medicine goes wrong now add to the equation an uneducated pregnant woman, it sounds like a ticking time bomb to me!!

This idea would see a backfire on the intention for making these products highly available.

I was mainly trying to give a metaphor for the price-point side of the two. Not compare them in another way. Both suffer from similar problematic pricing.

 

[hamhurricane]

The people who would end up abusing products like these due to complete lack of intelligence are the very people we don't want products like these to be in the hands of.

What would constitute 'abuse' for a medicine such as this? I think anyone too stupid to take a pill that kills a non-sentient blastocyst, is certainly not qualified to raise that same blastocyst into a human being.

 

[Runera46]

I can see some serious issues when you start using abortifacients in place of proven, working contraception methods.

 

[Lolie]

I guess they decided to put a higher price on life than you seem to have.

Seems pretty cheap when you think about it...

*edit: lol not meaning to sound anti-abortionist just that indeed this product would be very hard to price-point and requires a clever marketing team. Where do you cost something that takes life... Cheap enough that anyone can afford, yet costly enough that it doesn't get too abused (Just enough to make a nice profit). Much like a speeding fine. Cheap enough anyone can afford it. But not so expensive no one ever speeds (its a nice income why abolish it).

In terms of marketing, you'd price point it to be a similar cost to other methods of first trimester pregnancy termination - that's probably why the price variation is regional.

You really don't want it to be cheap enough for people to regard it as a "month after pill" - it's the kind of drug which would readily find a black market if priced too low and then we'd see the inevitable DIY abortion deaths (I can easily envisage teenagers buying it on the black market if it becomes very cheap). It's not a drug you want being taken without close medical supervision and appropriate follow up.

It's also worth remembering that "advertising" need not mean advertising to the public. Drug companies spend a fortune convincing doctors to prescribe their product instead of recommending an alternative even in countries like mine where advertising prescription meds direct to the public is prohibited.

I just found a reference to the cost of RU 486 when used for cancer treatment. It's not subsidised in any way by our government and has to be imported privately at a cost of $4000 per year (1 pill daily but dose not specified).

The so-called morning after pill is another instance of outrageous pricing for something which is much cheaper if taken for a different purpose.

 

[seep]

OP I'm with you that this (and all) medicine ought to be sold at cost. I have a shotgun, a trained rottweiler and a katana.

I think the current champ for price-per-dose is Sipuleucel-T (three doses = one course = $93,000)

---

10 for $1 at walmart

 

[Nickatina]

none of the above answers quite satisfy my question, there are plenty of controversial medications which might warrant a pharmaceutical company shell out money for extra security, even like common stimulants like adderall succeed in pissing a great deal of people off. And if the price is simply to limit its use, then why even make it available in the first place? why attach this with the financial-cum-moral judgement? This is dose for dose the most expensive drug i have ever encountered and I just cant see why.

It's been alluded to, but the real reason why the cost is so high is because the U.S. patent is held by the Population Council, a controversial international group financed by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Any drug being held under patent protection is inevitably subject to price-fixing because it restricts the availability of generic versions. Basically, they can charge whatever they want, because there are not many drugs that have FDA approval for abortion.

 

[interleukin]

The patent should be nearing its 20 year expiration date. I wonder if the procedure will become significantly cheper after that.
I see nothing wrong in using price as a way to limit usage. Some people really do need to use this drug but it can get out of hand if everyone gets their hands on it. If you were to legalize heroin, would you not want to price it high to prevent abuse and minimize OD's? The whole thing is really unfortunate though because as I mentioned earlier, this drug has other uses for which there is no better substitute.
Also, there are many drugs out there that are way more expensive. Enbrel costs me $2k a month but is probably harder to make and relatively new.

 

[hamhurricane]

it can get out of hand if everyone gets their hands on it. If you were to legalize heroin, would you not want to price it high to prevent abuse and minimize OD's?

I'm actually shocked to see people saying things like this, we shouldn't let women "get out of hand" aborting pregnancies they do not want? People should be allowed to do whatever they wish with their bodies, if you think an affordable price would encourage women to use mifepristone instead of condoms, I think you are ignoring the physiological and psychological discomfort associated with taking the drug, which I think would be enough of a deterrent against its use over other more immediate forms of contraception.
The idea of making 'legal heroin' expensive is equally wrong, most pharmaceutical opioids are already expensive via black market sources but that does not deter abuse, it just puts additional burdens on those who choose to (ab)use.

 

[Runera46]

I'm actually shocked to see people saying things like this, we shouldn't let women "get out of hand" aborting pregnancies they do not want? People should be allowed to do whatever they wish with their bodies, if you think an affordable price would encourage women to use mifepristone instead of condoms, I think you are ignoring the physiological and psychological discomfort associated with taking the drug, which I think would be enough of a deterrent against its use over other more immediate forms of contraception.
The idea of making 'legal heroin' expensive is equally wrong, most pharmaceutical opioids are already expensive via black market sources but that does not deter abuse, it just puts additional burdens on those who choose to (ab)use.

The objection to your idea is not so much prohibiting people to go about their abortive-liberty but more so anti the increase of abortions due to availability of the drug and decline in more traditional contraceptive methods.

 

[interleukin]

I'm actually shocked to see people saying things like this, we shouldn't let women "get out of hand" aborting pregnancies they do not want? People should be allowed to do whatever they wish with their bodies, if you think an affordable price would encourage women to use mifepristone instead of condoms, I think you are ignoring the physiological and psychological discomfort associated with taking the drug, which I think would be enough of a deterrent against its use over other more immediate forms of contraception.
The idea of making 'legal heroin' expensive is equally wrong, most pharmaceutical opioids are already expensive via black market sources but that does not deter abuse, it just puts additional burdens on those who choose to (ab)use.

I apologize if that statement came out the wrong way. My argument was that if an abortion pill was very easily available then people might start paying less attention to traditional contraception. Yes there is a psychological barrier to using this over basic contraception but that maybe overcome if the drug was cheap and freely available. Also this drug can be very unsafe when used for abortion without constant monitoring so there maybe public health concerns if many people started using it by themselves. I want abortion to be accessible to everyone but discouraged over traditional contraception.
I realize that the heroin analogy was bad because the cost benefit analysis made by an addict is very different than someone choosing to ignore more basic contraceptives because in the worst case there is a cheap alternative available.
Sorry if I turned this thread into a discussion on the morality of abortion although it was bound to come up at some point when talking about this drug.

 

[Alcyone]

^ I'm glad you cleared that up, because I was about to scream at you for being an ignorant misogynist.