Sen. Brown: Drug Price Increase from $10 to $1,500 is 'Unconscionable'

In a Monday morning op-ed, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, criticized a pharmaceutical company for raising the price of a pregnancy drug from $10 to $1,500, days after he and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the price hike.

KV Pharmaceuticals' March 7 price increase is "unconscionable," Sen. Brown wrote in a USA Today op-ed on Monday. The St. Louis-based company did not invent the drug progesterone, but bought exclusive rights to it and named it Maneka. When it received approval from the Food and Drug Administration recently KV decided to hike up the price.

The company justified the increase by citing research that found the cost of the drug is still less than that of having a premature baby, Sen. Brown wrote in the op-ed.

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