A markup of 279,000% over production costs

[tavernier]

20. I recently had retinal surgery

and two of the prescribed eye drops were $150 each. I asked my surgeon if they were made out of gold, at which point he told me a story about a recent med (also eye drop) that had been prescribed to patients with glaucoma... Not expensive, but with good results. I think he said something like 30 bucks a bottle. Anyway, long story short, they began noticing improvement in their patients with macular degeneration, up until then, an affliction that no drops had improved, so they started to order it for this purpose. As soon as the pharm that produced these drops got wind of this, they upped the price to some obscene amount... $1500 per bottle rings a bell but I can't swear to that... Could have been more.

Anyway, he said he and his colleagues were furious when they discovered this and were working to have it changed, but in the mean time, his patients who might benefit cannot afford it. He was quite livid as he told me this and he didn't mince words when he described them.