Another drug tied to furor over high prices
By Chen Xingjie |
May 28, 2010, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
A SECOND anti-cancer drug price scandal has erupted after a medicine that costs 4 yuan (59 US cents) was sold to patients for 20 times the cost, China Central Television reported yesterday.
An 8-milliliter shot of Ondansetron is sold to patients at 84.8 yuan, according to the Website of Shaanxi Province's pricing authority in northern China.
That's even more than the profit margin of 15 times cost alleged for asparagus pills, sold for 213 yuan per bottle to patients compared with factory prices of 15.5 yuan.
The hospital involved, Xiangya No.2 Hospital in Hunan Province, had insisted it was in the right by pricing the pills based on the 185-yuan bidding prices set by the government-backed distributor Zhenxiang Company.
An earlier report by a medical newspaper run by the Health Ministry had indicated Hunan health officials may have been involved in helping boost medicine prices.
But a Hunan health official denied the relationship between Zhenxiang and the bureau. He told CCTV an investigation is still ongoing.
An 8-milliliter shot of Ondansetron is sold to patients at 84.8 yuan, according to the Website of Shaanxi Province's pricing authority in northern China.
That's even more than the profit margin of 15 times cost alleged for asparagus pills, sold for 213 yuan per bottle to patients compared with factory prices of 15.5 yuan.
The hospital involved, Xiangya No.2 Hospital in Hunan Province, had insisted it was in the right by pricing the pills based on the 185-yuan bidding prices set by the government-backed distributor Zhenxiang Company.
An earlier report by a medical newspaper run by the Health Ministry had indicated Hunan health officials may have been involved in helping boost medicine prices.
But a Hunan health official denied the relationship between Zhenxiang and the bureau. He told CCTV an investigation is still ongoing.
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