The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has been investigating the ins and outs of the pharmaceutical company for some time, and is now intervening.
It’s all about the drug CDCA-Leadiant. It is used in the treatment of the rare metabolic disease CTX. Patients are completely dependent on the drug and must continue to take it for a lifetime.
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From 46 euros to 14,000 euros
Leadiant already supplied the product in 2008, then under the name Chenofalk. The price at the time was 46 euros per 100 capsules. In 2009 the drug was given a new name and a new price: 885 euros.
Five years later, the price was raised to 3103 euros, while the company had also started proceedings to obtain the exclusive rights to sell the drug to combat CTX. The company got those rights, and then the price really exploded.
The name was changed once more to CDCA-Leadiant and the price went up to 14,000 euros. The medicine hadn’t changed.
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abuse of power Macht
According to the ACM, that price is ‘excessively high and unfair’. Excessively high because Leadiant’s costs are low and the risks are very small. Unfair because the drug had long been available under a different name for a much lower price.
ACM therefore concludes that the company has abused its dominant position as a monopolist to enrich itself at the expense of patients and society.
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Very serious
“Leadiant has implemented a huge price increase for a long-standing drug after a limited investment and with little risk. There is no innovation at all here. We consider this a very serious violation,” says Martijn Snoep of the ACM.
Leadiant did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It is clear from the ACM’s decision to impose a fine that the pharmaceutical company does not agree with ACM’s reading. The company said it wanted to negotiate the price with health insurers and the Ministry of Health, but they would have frustrated the negotiations.
According to the ACM, there is no evidence of this and all that time Leadiant just continued to collect 14,000 euros per package.
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