Big Pharma Profiteering on Orphan Drugs (Part 3)

by Admin | November 19, 2013 11:35 am

The Seattle Times has published the next installment of its investigation of drug industry profiteering from orphan drugs. It’s entitled How a Drug for a Few Patients Was Turned Into $81 Million in Sales[1]. The story describes how Cell Therapeutics Inc. systematically spread the word among physicians (sometimes with the assistance of patient advocacy groups) about potential off-label uses of its orphan drug Trisenox, which is approved only for a type of leukemia that affects about 400 U.S. patients per year. By early 2003, less than three years after coming on the market, “off-label prescriptions accounted for about 90 percent of the drug’s sales,” the Times says. By the summer of 2005, Trisenox had produced $81.3 million in cumulative revenue for CTI, the Times notes. In 2007, CTI agreed to pay the United States $10.5 million to resolve allegations that it illegally promoted Trisenox off-label.

Source URL: https://340binformed.org/2013/11/big-pharma-profiteering-on-orphan-drugs-part-3/

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