Second drug price scandal comes to light

By Jane Chen | May 27, 2010, Thursday |

Online 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 today.

The medicine Ondansetron, is sold to patients at 84.8 yuan for an 8-ml shot according to the Website of Shaanxi Province's pricing authority in northern China, the report said.

That beats the profit margin of 15 times cost alleged for asparagus pills, sold at 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 because some shareholders in the distribution company have the same names as officials in charge of medicine purchase.

But a Hunan health official denied the relationship between Zhenxiang and the bureau. He told CCTV an investigation is still ongoing.

Nation

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Second drug price scandal comes to light

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