Column: When a drug costs 30 times what it once did

(MCT) Diane Shattuck filled a prescription in December for a generic antibiotic called doxycycline. With insurance, she paid $4.30 for 60 pills at a CVS store in Orange, Calif.

She returned at the end of February to refill her prescription. This time, she was told her cost for the drug would be about $165.

It was bizarre, Shattuck, 73, told me. And no one at CVS could explain why the price was so high.

Unfortunately, I wont be able to offer a clear-cut answer, either. But my effort to untangle Shattucks situation cast a harsh light on the shadowy world of drug pricing.

It revealed that different manufacturers can charge wildly different prices for what is essentially the same generic medicine, and that drugstores can rake in unconscionable profits by passing along marked-up meds to customers without the slightest explanation.

Its a very murky world, said Jeffrey McCombs, a professor of pharmaceutical economics and policy at the University of Southern California. All you can say for sure is that the price being charged has nothing to do with the actual cost of producing the generic.

Theres been a lot of buzz lately about insane health care charges. Time magazine carried an extraordinary article by Steven Brill recently highlighting the arbitrariness of many hospital prices.

But crazy hospital charges often can be negotiated lower by patients or patient advocates. Prescription drugs are offered by pharmacies to customers on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. And many people might not think to even question the price being charged.

Shattuck was prescribed doxycycline for a skin rash. The first batch of pills she received was manufactured by Watson Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Switzerlands Actavis Group last year. Watson specializes in generic drugs.

According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, doxycycline is in a class of medications called tetracycline antibiotics. Its used to treat inflections, including pneumonia and other respiratory tract infections; Lyme disease; acne; infections of skin, genital and urinary systems.

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Column: When a drug costs 30 times what it once did