{"id":12569,"date":"2017-08-09T22:52:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-09T22:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/2017\/08\/09\/47-hospitals-slashed-their-use-of-two-key-heart-drugs-after-huge-price-hikes\/"},"modified":"2017-08-09T22:52:00","modified_gmt":"2017-08-09T22:52:00","slug":"47-hospitals-slashed-their-use-of-two-key-heart-drugs-after-huge-price-hikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/47-hospitals-slashed-their-use-of-two-key-heart-drugs-after-huge-price-hikes\/","title":{"rendered":"47 Hospitals Slashed Their Use Of Two Key Heart Drugs After Huge Price Hikes"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sarah Jane Tribble<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n Valeant Pharmaceuticals, based in Bridgewater Township, N.J., bought two specialty heart drugs used in emergency treatment from Marathon Pharmaceuticals in 2015, and then dramatically increased each drug’s price.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ron Antonelli\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n

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Ron Antonelli\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n

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Even before media reports and a congressional hearing vilified Valeant Pharmaceuticals International for raising prices on a pair of lifesaving heart drugs, Dr. Umesh Khot knew something was very wrong.<\/p>\n

Khot is a cardiologist<\/a> at the Cleveland Clinic, which prides itself on its outstanding heart care. The health system’s internal monitoring system had alerted doctors about the skyrocketing cost of the drugs, nitroprusside<\/a> and isoproterenol<\/a>. But these two older drugs, frequently used in emergency and intensive care situations, have no direct alternatives.<\/p>\n

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“If we are having concerns, what is happening nationally?” Khot wondered.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, a lot was happening.<\/p>\n

Following major price increases, use of the two cardiac medicines has dramatically decreased at 47 hospitals, according to a research lette<\/a>r Khot and two others published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The number of patients in these hospitals getting nitroprusside, which is given intravenously when a patient’s blood pressure is dangerously high, decreased 53 percent from 2012 to 2015, the researchers found. At the same time, the drug’s price per 50 milligrams jumped more than 30-fold \u2014 from $27.46 in 2012 to $880.88 in 2015.<\/p>\n

The use of isoproterenol, key to monitoring and treating heart-rhythm problems during surgery, decreased 35 percent as the price per milligram rose from $26.20 to $1,790.11.<\/p>\n

The two drugs, which are off patent, have long been go-to medicines for doctors.<\/p>\n

“This isn’t like a cholesterol medicine; these are really, very specialized drugs,” says Khot, who is lead author on the peer-reviewed research letter. When patients get the drugs, he says, “they are either sick beyond sick in intensive care or they’re under anesthesia [during] a procedure.”<\/p>\n