Regulations often increase monopoly power. Indeed, increasing monopoly power is often why regulations are enacted. In other cases, however, ostensibly neutral regulations are co-opted by entrepreneurs who spot an opportunity to leverage the regulation for profit. Derek Lowe points us to an interesting case of the latter involving drug pricing and the FDA.

Retrophin recently purchased the marketing rights to the drug Thiola and they are increasing the price from $1.50 per pill to over $30 per pill. Surprisingly, Thiola is off-patent. Ordinarily, we would expect such a large price increase to be met with entry and price pushed to marginal cost. To enter into the market, however, a generic producer must prove bio-equivalence which requires that the generic producer obtain a small quantity of the branded drug. Branded drug firms don’t like competition from generics and they try to impede the process but it’s typically not a big deal for a generic producer to obtain some of the branded drug for their bio-equivalence trials.

In 2007, however, the FDA was officially authorized to approve drugs conditional on the firm implementing a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS). The FDA approved thalidomide, for example, only if physicians signed a patient-physician agreement and enrolled each of their patient’s directly with the producer. Indeed, a unique prescription authorization number was required for each prescription which could be filled only at specially authorized pharmacies. The idea, of course, was to prevent anyone from taking thalidomide during pregnancy. The purpose of the regulation was probably not to create monopoly power but it didn’t take firms long to realize that REMS regulations could be co-opted. Simply put, a REMS agreement can make it illegal for generic firms to obtain a sample of the branded drug through ordinary channels. In the thalidomide agreement, for example, it’s even the case that all unused thalidomide must be returned to the producer! Retrophin is hoping to use a similar REMS strategy to keep generic competitors out of the market for Thiola.

Addendum: Derek’s post aroused the ire of the CEO of Retrophin and may have gotten him banned from reddit.