Public spending on colchicine has grown exponentially over the past decade despite generics suggesting an uphill slog for patients seeking access to long-term therapy for gout or cardiac conditions.
Medicaid spending on single-ingredient colchicine jumped 2833%, from $1.1 million in 2008 to $32.2 million in 2017, new findings show. Medicaid expansion likely played a role in the increase, but 58% was due to price hikes alone.
The centuries-old drug sold for pennies in the United States before increasing 50-fold to about $5 per pill in 2009 after the first FDA-approved colchicine product, Colcrys, was granted 3 years' market exclusivity for the treatment of acute gout based on a 1-week trial.
If prices had remained at pre-Colcrys levels, Medicaid spending in 2017 would have totaled just $2.1 million rather than $32.2 million according to the analysis, published online November 30 in JAMA Internal Medicine.
The study was motivated by difficulties gout patients have in accessing colchicine, but also last year's COLCOT trial, which reported fewer ischemic cardiovascular events in patients receiving colchicine after myocardial infarction (MI), observed Natalie McCormick, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston.
"They were suggesting it could be a cost-effective way for secondary prevention and it is fairly inexpensive in most countries, but not the US," she told
