UK Fines Advanz Pharma $140 Million for Inflating Thyroid Tablet Prices

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has fined UK-based drugmaker Advanz Pharma and two private equity firms nearly $140 million for allegedly charging inflated prices for a drug used to treat thyroid hormone deficiency.

The CMA said Advanz supplied liothyronine tablets at “excessive and unfair prices,” with the price of thyroid tablet packs increasing from less than $28 in 2009 to nearly $345 in 2017, an increase of 1,110 percent.

The dramatic price hike led to a huge increase in costs for the National Health Service and “meant that people dealing with depression and extreme fatigue, as a result of their thyroid conditions, were told they could not continue to receive the most effective treatment for them due its increased price,” said CMA’s CEO Andrea Coscelli.