Cavalcade of Risk is Up...and my post regarding Questcor is included!

Robert Laszewski hosts this week's Cavalcade of Risk at Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review.

"The Cavalcade of Risk--Recent Posts from the World of Risk Management"

The popular notion of individual responsibility, and the information consumers now have available on the web, have taken the term "risk management" way past the professional risk managers I have known over the years. So, here's a list of traditional and not so traditional risk management ideas.

Lisa Emrich starts things off with a post on her new blog, "Brass and Ivory." This time she takes a very detailed look at one drug company's product whose price she calculates has gone up 1400% and questions why. Lisa's post raises questions for insurance companies that take risk for the cost of drugs and for consumers who bear a lot of that risk themselves.

Cool...did you catch that? My post is included!!

Certainly Questcor Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (QSC) has made a risky move in raising the cost of H.P. Acthar Gel to $23,000 per vial. I'm sure that it was a calculated risk, but I'm not so sure that it was a wise move.

For a relatively small biotech company, who doesn't own the patents for their two marketed drugs and who dreams of competing with the 'big boys' in the biotech/neuroscience field, they may have gone too far. I'm afraid that the assumption that their drug should be priced at the same level as other MS drugs was misguided.

Comparison:

For $23,000, Questcor will provide you with 1 (one) vial of medicine, and hopefully the required syringes.

For $21,000, I get 360 pre-filled syringes of Copaxone, an autoinjector (prescription required), and more individually-wrapped alchohol swabs than I will ever need (since using them before self-injecting BURNS!) I recommend giving shots after a shower.

But I'd just like to ask Questcor....

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING???

Besides greed, this is.

Read my previous posts here:

"What Questcor didn't tell you about their income losses..."

"Questcor uses Orphan Drug Act as a Strategy Tool to boost marketing and development"

Be sure to check each of the great links included in the above articles.