The price of URL’s approved form, Qualaquin®, was set five times higher than existing generics.

by Michael Hopping

Those paying the bills for treating people who suffer from gout, a common form of arthritis, will experience a flare-up of financial pain this year. The price of colchicine tablets, a mainstay of treatment, is going from ten cents ($0.10) to five dollars ($5.00) per pill.

The rationale, or rationalization, for this fifty-fold price increase spotlights yet another area of dysfunction, at least for patients, in the American healthcare system.

Colchicine preparations have been successfully treating gout for at least two thousand years. Since the purified drug was first produced in 1820 doctors have accumulated vast clinical experience with using it safely. However, because colchicine predated federal rules for safety and effectiveness testing, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) never approved it.