Rigging charge exposes fish tale behind antibiotic prices

New York

AT least twice a week, Tanja Vanderlinde says, patients call in to say that they can't afford drugs.

High-deductible health plans mean they have to dip into their own pockets to pay for generic antibiotics such as doxycycline, a "gold standard" for Lyme disease, said Ms Vanderlinde, an internist at Concord Hospital Medical Group in New Hampshire.

Doxycycline used to cost about 10 US cents for a 100-milligram capsule. Its list price rose to as much as US$4.92 in 2013 before dipping to as little as US$1.23 recently.

"It's crazy," Ms Vanderlinde said.

Seemingly inexplicable pricing is widespread in the US market for generic antibiotics. Since 2012, list prices for tetracycline, which treats pneumonia and urinary tract infections, have soared to 170 times the old p…