Turing Pharma halves Daraprim price hike from 5,000% to 2,500%

After hiking the price of a life-saving drug to over 50 times its former price, Turing Pharmaceuticals is going back on its word to cut the $750-per-pill price. The hike had drawn howls of protests from patients, doctors and other drugmakers.

The small biotech company is now cutting what it charged hospitals, by up to 50 per cent for Daraprim, its parasitic infection drug. (See: Turing does volte face on cutting price of drug Daraprim)

Most patients' co-payments would be capped at $10 or less a month, however, insurers would be forced to pick up bulk of the $750 tab, driving up future treatment and insurance costs.

The patent on Daraprim, a 62-year-old pill expired decades ago, but it continues to be the preferred treatment for a rare parasitic infection, toxoplasmosis. People with weak immune systems are especially vulnerable to the infection. People most likely to contract the infection are organ transplant and HIV patients - and pregnant women, because it can kill their baby.

According to HIV Medicine Association chairman Carlos del Rio, Turing's changes were ''just window dressing.''

Del Rio further noted that while many patients availed treatment at hospitals initially, most were then treated at home for a couple of months, so the lower hospital price was of no help.

The Swiss company plans to cut the list price for Daraprim by about 50 per cent and make smaller bottles of the drug available starting next year to make it more affordable to stock. Additionally, Turing would offer sample starter packages at no cost so physicians could start treatment immediately.

"This is an important step in our commitment to ensure ready access to Daraprim at the lowest possible out-of-pocket cost for both hospitals and patients," Nancy Retzlaff, Turing's chief commercial officer, said in a press release. "We pledge that no patient needing Daraprim will ever be denied access."

"While Turing continues to promise that all patients who need Daraprim have access to it, physicians will be forced to continue looking for less expensive alternative therapies for their patients with toxoplasmosis," said del Rio, in a statement.