Word: sandoz
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...patients who need the drug most face a huge barrier: treatment costs nearly $9,000 a year. The drug is a patented product, available in the U.S. under the brand name Clozaril only from New Jersey-based Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Sandoz International of Basel, Switzerland. The company's explanation for the steep price is that clozapine occasionally causes fatal side effects, so patients must be required to have regular blood tests to make sure they are tolerating the drug. The expense of the tests pushes clozapine beyond the reach of the majority of schizophrenics, many of whom...
That situation has stirred outrage, not only from patients but also from lawmakers, public health-insurance officials and many of the nation's prominent mental-health professionals. Last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Carl Salzman, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, called Sandoz's actions "monopolistic" and demanded that the drug company and health officials come to an agreement that would make the drug more accessible to "the patients for whom it is intended." Earlier this month, Democratic Senator David Pryor of Arkansas introduced legislation that would reduce Sandoz's control...
...fully aware of this danger: the drug had been released earlier in Europe and withdrawn temporarily for just this reason. But the regulators decided the drug's potential usefulness was too great to keep it off the market. To address the safety question, the FDA ruled that Sandoz must devise a blood-monitoring system that would spot early signs of the fatal complication...