This drug is three decades old and costs $375,000

For decades, many patients with a rare disorder called Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome, or LEMS, have been able to get a key drug for free. Now treating LEMS will carry a list price of $375,000.

As STAT’s Meghana Keshavan reports, that’s because a company called Catalyst Pharmaceuticals won FDA approval for a slightly modified version of the drug LEMS patients have been getting since the 1980s.

That approval means patients can no longer get the drug for free from a non-profit that has long provided it, and they can’t buy it from compounding pharmacies that charge about $300 to $500 per month. And Catalyst, thanks to FDA regulations, can charge whatever it pleases.

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