Drugmaker corners US market with worm pill costing 200 times UK price

A US drugmaker has put a price tag of more than $800 on a pinworm treatment – 200 times more expensive than the equivalent medicine on British pharmacy shelves, in the latest example of “ price gouging” in the world’s largest healthcare market.

Impax Laboratories started selling mebendazole this year at an average price of $442 per pill, according to figures seen by the Financial Times, which were checked with several US pharmacy chains including Walgreens and CVS.

Most cases of pinworm, a parasitic infection also known as threadworm, require two pills, meaning a course of treatment costs about $884. The drug is prescription-only in the US but can be bought over the counter in the UK, where Boots, a chemist chain, charges £6.99 for four pills, or £1.75 each.

The pinworm parasite, which is common in children, affects 200m people worldwide a year and up to 40m in the US. It is recommended that families are treated for the highly contagious infection at the same time, meaning a family of five’s treatment costs about $4,400.

Mebendazole, which is on the World Health Organisation’s list of essential medicines, can be bought in the developing world for less than 1 cent per pill.

The drug was available as a cheaper generic version for $1.60 per pill until 2011, when it was removed from the market by Teva, the manufacturer, without explanation. Impax reintroduced a branded version of the pill, Emverm, in April, and is the only provider of the tablets in the US.

“This is the latest example of a pharma bad actor cornering the US market and taking advantage of payers and consumers,” said Michael Rea, chief executive of Rx Savings, which makes software to cut the cost of medicines.

Impax declined to comment.

Impax is not a household name, but briefly gained notoriety in 2015 after selling Daraprim, a life-saving drug for Aids and cancer sufferers, to a company controlled by Martin Shkreli. The disgraced pharma entrepreneur promptly raised the price from $13.50 to $750 a pill, prompting an international outcry.

David Amsellem, analyst at Piper Jaffray, estimates the market could be worth $300m per  year.

For families with good healthcare coverage, their insurer would pick up most of the cost, but Americans on cheaper insurance plans pay up to 50 per cent.