Drug companies are quietly pushing through price hikes of 100% - or even more than 1,000% - for a very small but growing number of prescription drugs, helping to drive up costs for insurers, patients and government programs. The number of brand-name drugs with increases of 100% or more could double this year from four years ago, researchers from the University of Minnesota say. Many of the drugs are older products that treat fairly rare, but often serious or even life-threatening, conditions. Among the examples: Questcor Pharmaceuticals last August raised the wholesale price on Acthar, which treats spasms in babies, from about $1,650 a vial to more than $23,000. Ovation raised the cost of Cosmegen, which treats a type of tumor, from $16.79 to $593.75 in January 2006. The average wholesale price of 26 brand-name drugs jumped 100% or more in a single cost adjustment last year, up from 15 in 2004, the university study found. In the first half of this year, 17 drugs made the list. ‘This does drive up the price of health care,’ says Alan Goldbloom, president of Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota. ‘Hospitals are either eating the cost or passing […]