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  3. A US drug company has increased the price of an acne cream by more than 3,900% to $9,561 in less than 18 months in the latest ex

A US drug company has increased the price of an acne cream by more than 3,900% to $9,561 in less than 18 months in the latest ex

admin2021-02-21  41
问题    A US drug company has increased the price of an acne cream by more than 3,900% to $9,561 in less than 18 months in the latest example of drug "price cheating", which has enraged the American public and become a central topic of debate in the presidential election campaign.
   Novum Pharma, a recently formed privately held Chicago-based company, bought the rights to drug Aloquin in May 2015. The 60g cream, which contains two cheap ingredients, was sold by its previous owner, Primus Pharmaceuticals, for $241.50. Novum almost immediately increased the price by 1,100%, and hiked the price higher still in January 2016. Figures seen by the Financial Times show the company increased the price a third time last week to take the cost to $9,561.
   So-called "price cheating", in which companies buy the rights to older drugs and then vastly increase their cost, has provoked outrage across the country and led to calls for reform of the US healthcare system.
   Earlier this month, Hillary Clinton claimed "It’s time to move beyond talking about these price hikes and start acting to address them. All Americans deserve full access to the medications they need— without being burdened by excessive, unjustified costs." Clinton said she would change the law to allow the "emergency importation" of safe alternative treatments from abroad.
   Aloquin contains two cheap active ingredients: a decades-old antibiotic, iodoquinol, and an extract from the aloe vera plant. Iodoquinol can be bought for as little as $30 a tube and aloe vera cream costs a few dollars.
   The drug is labelled as "possibly effective", as the US Food and Drug Administration has stated that there is only limited evidence that the drug is effective.
   Novum has also drastically increased the price of its other two skin creams, Alcortin A and Novacort. The drugs are prescription only, with the cost being mostly covered by health insurance or government assistance. In instances when the full cost of the treatment isn’t covered by insurance, Novum provides coupons to reduce the proportion that patients have to pay, while collecting the rest from the health plan.
   The company, which is privately held and does not publish figures on sales or profits, did not reply to requests for comment. A spokesman told the public that the firm was founded by "a group of like-minded investors who believe in the firm’s focus of providing therapeutic innovations that are affordable for patients".
The other two skin creams by Novum______.
选项 A、are labelled ineffective by FDA
B、can only be prescribed by doctors
C、are covered by the government and hospitals
D、are discounted for poor people
答案B
解析 事实细节题。根据定位词定位到第七段。该段中关于诺威姆药业的其他两款护肤霜，“这些药品仅仅是处方药”，所以只能由医生开具处方，故B项为正确选项。
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