US Drugmaker Raises Price of Vitamins By More Than 800% (ft.com)

David Crow, reporting for the Financial Times: A US drugmaker is charging almost $300 for a bottle of prescription vitamins that can be bought online for less than $5, in the latest attempt at price gouging in the world's largest healthcare market. Avondale Pharmaceuticals raised the price of Niacor, a prescription-only version of niacin, by 809 per cent last month, taking a bottle of 100 tablets from $32.46 to $295 (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source), according to figures seen by the Financial Times. Although niacin, a type of vitamin B3, is available in over-the-counter forms for less than $5 per 100 tablets, some doctors still prefer to use the version approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat high cholesterol. Avondale, a secretive Alabama-based company, put the price of Niacor up shortly after acquiring the rights to the medicine in a so-called "buy-and-raise" deal -- a strategy made famous by Martin Shkreli, the disgraced biotech entrepreneur.

Comments

Re:Exactly?

[angel'o'sphere]

Most vitamins don'r degrade at all.
Why would they?
Relatively constant temperature, dry, no light. How do you guys think stuff can "degrade" in such conditions?

Kid: "Hey mom! Look at this! This Himalaya salt has a 'best consume before 2022' date! It must be really good!"
Mom: "yeah, we are so lucky! They dug out this perfect fine salt just last year, after it spent millions of years there! Just before the expiring date!"