Out of control

I was just forwarded this Times article about drug price increases from our favorite pharmaceutical companies. This bit should be particularly salient for anyone wondering why the SGAC treatment access campaign focuses on the targets it does:

In some drug categories, such as cholesterol-lowering treatments, many drugs compete, keeping prices relatively low. But when a medicine does not have a good substitute, its maker can charge almost any price. In 2003, Abbott Laboratories raised the price of Norvir, an AIDS drug introduced in 1996, from $54 to $265 a month. AIDS groups protested, but Abbott refused to rescind the increase.

Much of the world has no hope of paying that inflated price, which is why exclusive production rights are so dangerous when it comes to life saving drugs. It isn't just AIDS meds that worry me, though; I'd like to hear a good reason for this:

Genentech, for example, has indicated it will effectively double the price of its colon cancer drug Avastin, to about $100,000, when Avastin's use is expanded to breast and lung cancer patients. As with Avastin, nothing about nitrogen mustard is changing but the price.

That just looks bad evil. Maybe there's an explanation, but it had better be a damn good one.