Price Gouging With FDA Approval

Anyone using colchicine, one of the best treatments for gout, is in for a nasty surprise, compliments of the FDA and the rapacious actions of URL Pharmaceuticals and Takeda Pharmaceuticals. Until recently, I used the generic drug colchicine. A prescription of 100 tablets typically cost about $10, actually 9¢ a pill. Best of all, it really worked. However, now one must use something called Colcrys (a recently branded version of colchicine) which costs $5 per pill. Colcrys is simply colchicine with a new label stuck on it. You might think that the much respected FDA (Food and Drug Administration) would have had more good sense than to allow any drug manufacturer to corner the market on the generic drug colchicine and then charge 50 times the former cost. You would be wrong. They allowed this sham to play out with not so much as a howdy-do — and at the expense of unsuspecting patients, doctors, medical insurance providers, Medicaid, and Medicare. Is there indeed a new climate of regulation unfolding in the halls of the FDA? Is the new initiative one that insures that no good generic medicine can go unpunished?