Drug firm raises the cost of dying

When California’s aidin-dying law takes effect this June, terminally ill patients who decide to end their lives could face a hefty bill for the lethal medication. It retails for more than $3,000.

Valeant Pharmaceuticals, the company that makes the drug most commonly prescribed by physicians to aid patients who want to end their lives, doubled the drug’s price last year, one month after California lawmakers proposed legalizing the practice.

“It’s just pharmaceutical company greed,” said David Grube, a retired family doctor in Oregon, where physician-assisted death has been legal for 20 years.

The drug is Seconal, or secobarbital, its generic name. Originally developed in the 1930s as a sleeping pill, it fell out of favor when people died from taking too much or from taking it in combination with alcohol. But when intended as a lethal medication to hasten the death of someone suffering from a terminal disease, Seconal is the drug of choice.

Valeant bought several other drugs at the same time it bought Seconal, raising some of those prices as much as 500 percent. That sparked a congressional investigation into its pricing practices. (The company’s CEO resigned last month.)

“Valeant sets prices for drugs based on a number of factors,” the company said in a statement. “When possible, we offer patient assistance programs to mitigate the effects of price adjustments and keep outof-pocket costs affordable for patients.”

There is no generic form of Seconal.