A few weeks ago we were talking about a new medication that could prevent premature births, and we return to it because there is controversy regarding its commercialization. Medication to prevent premature delivery has prohibitive prices due to the monopoly of a pharmaceutical company to market it.
Last month, when the US government approved the first drug to prevent premature births, the possibility of preventing up to 10,000 early births in the United States each year was celebrated.
But immediately it was seen that the possibilities of this treatment being extended were not many, since the pharmaceutical company K-V, which enjoys the monopoly of marketing the drug for seven years, proposed an initial price per pregnancy of more than 20,000 euros.
After receiving pressure from the Government, that price was reduced to about 9,700 euros, an amount that is not available to everyone. In a private health system such as the United States, only people who can afford it will access the treatment. But I don't think other public health systems cost the same.
It is clear that the pharmaceutical companies are not NGOs or charities, but it is suspect that, before becoming popular, the doses for the final 17 weeks of pregnancy cost 221 euros in pharmacies, and when the compound was prepared in the laboratories freely an injection of 17P did not exceed 13 euros.
Recall that the medicine is hydroxyprogesterone, or 17P, a hormone produced during pregnancy. In 2003, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study that showed that injecting 463 pregnant women with previous preterm births, only 36.3% had given birth before 37 weeks.
After the exorbitant price increase, pharmacists, doctors, patients, insurers and the Government they mobilized to stop this K-V behavior the less unethical.
The FDA, the agency with pharmaceutical powers of the federal government, issued a statement on March 30 admitting that it had ceded the license to KV because its medicine (marketed as Makena) is a sterile injectable dose and, in the event that there is a risk of contamination, there are more safety guarantees with a regulated product.
But even so, a licensed pharmacist can synthesize a medication, in this case hydroxyprogesterone, using ingredients that are components of other FDA-approved medications.
In short, it is a pity that Medication to prevent preterm birth is marketed at prohibitive prices trying to impose a monopoly in this field of health and having other cheaper alternatives, which I hope will be extended in cases of risk, for the sake of the baby's health.
