After the Food and Drug Administration granted KV Pharmaceuticals sole rights to produce progesterone, a drug that prevents premature births in mothers, the company has begun charging $1,500 per dose of a drug that formerly cost $10.

ABC News reports the drug was previously available in an unregulated form from pharmacies that specialized in compounding.

A director of gynecology at a New York hospital decries the FDA’s move and its result:

“Progesterone is so cheap to make and we never had a problem with the compounding pharmacies making it. There’s probably some variation between pharmacies, which nobody likes, but nobody likes $1,500 a shot either. That seems like highway robbery.”

KV said in a statement to ABC that it would strive to make the drug affordable to those in need. Those with less than $60,000 in annual household income will be able to apply to receive the drug for free, and those who are insured and make less than $100,000 will be promised a copay of $20 or less.

Doctors said those who are forced to go through an approval process to receive the drug may be forced to delay treatment.

Price of Preventing Premature Births Skyrockets [ABC News via Boing Boing]

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