A drug company in Canada increased the cost of medication used to treat epileptic children by 2,000% with very little warning, CBC News reports, a move that echoes American pharmaceutical investor Martin Shrkeli’s decision earlier this year to raise the price of a cancer drug by 5,000%. 
 
 The Irish pharmaceutical company, Mallinckrodt, sells a drug called Synacthen Depot in Canada, a treatment for a rare form of epilepsy called West syndrome. The cost of the drug went up from $33.05 per vial to $680 per vial, meaning that a full six-week course would cost $14,280. 
 
 Health officials in Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Ontario say their systems have been hit by the increased cost of the drug in recent months, with Alberta taking the drug off its list of drugs that are automatically covered under the province’s public health network. In Canada, a government review board can control price increases for patented drugs (which means the formula for the drug is still owned by just one company), but not generic drugs (which means versions of the drug can be made by any company). Synacthen Depot is a generic drug. While state health authorities are supposed to have some control over the price of generics, there are loopholes in the system, CBC News writes. 
 
 “My concern is that this is a harbinger of things that will come in the near future. This is predatory behaviour on the part of drug companies—period,” Dr. Carter Snead, a Canadian pediatric neurologist, told Epilepsy Ontario. “This won’t be the last time this happens. Canada, the United States and Europe need to put some kind of system in place so manufacturers of drugs…have to follow strict regulations following price increases, and the increases cannot exceed the consumer price index.” 
 
 In a statement, a spokesperson for the Mallinckrodt justified the price hike by saying they were making a loss on the drug, and that the supplier they bought it from had even considered ceasing production as a result of the costs. 
 
 “When Mallinckrodt acquired Questcor in 2014, Synacthen Depot was one of the products in the portfolio. It was losing money then and still is. Moreover, in the spring of 2014, Mallinckrodt was told by the existing supplier of the product that they would cease production in early 2016,” a Mallinckrodt spokesperson told CBC News. 
 
 In the U.S., Shkreli backed down after a public backlash and said his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, would not be raising the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750, though he continued to defend his actions. Since the drug is generic, a competitor to Turing Pharmaceuticals has said they will soon offer the same drug at $1 per pill. ||||| The price of drug prescribed to infants in Canada with a rare and potentially dangerous form of epilepsy has jumped by 2,000 per cent practically overnight, upsetting specialists and parents. 
 
 Infantile spasms, also called West syndrome, is a catastrophic and rare form of epilepsy. It's diagnosed in babies with seizures that show abnormal bursts in the brain's electrical activity on an electroencephalogram or EEG. 
 
 Mia Brooks of Salmon Arm, B.C., noticed the seizures in her son more than a month ago. 
 
 "When he woke up he started to startle reflex," Brooks recalled. "You see babies do this all the time. Their hands and legs shake. I thought it was odd because he was doing it repetitively every 10 seconds or so and he did it for a couple of minutes." 
 
 At Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, infantile spasm is treated as an emergency, said neurologist Dr. Carter Snead. Rapid treatment is critical. He's angry about the price increase. 
 
 "This was just dropped like a bombshell," Snead said about the way the price increase was communicated to provinces and hospitals. 
 
 The treatment protocol starts with one drug. But about half don't respond to it. So doctors then turn to Synacthen Depot, a long-acting form of the drug that is injected into muscle. The drug is long off patent. Snead said it works 90 per cent of the time. 
 
 Mia Brooks worries about the treatment costs of a medication to treat infantile spasms. (CBC) 
 
 "The price of Synacthen Depot increased by more than 2,000 per cent from $33.05 per vial to $680 per vial," said Carolyn Ziegler, a spokeswoman for Alberta Health. 
 
 The price was so high that Alberta delisted it in July, Ziegler said, meaning it's no longer automatically paid for by the province. The drug may still be provided on a case-by-case basis 
 
 Health officials in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Ontario reported similar increases. 
 
 "They just bought it and jacked up the price," Snead said. 
 
 Mia Brooks calls the price increase "absurd." She's worried that she will eventually be asked to pay for some of that increase. 
 
 "There's no way we can access that amount of money," she said. 
 
 The global pharmaceutical company Mallinckrodt owns the rights to Synacthen Depot in Canada. Mallinckrodt says it increased the price because of a change of manufacturing. The company did not respond to requests for details about where it manufacturers the drug and why the change in manufacturing justifies the price increase. 
 
 "When Mallinckrodt acquired Questcor in 2014, Synacthen Depot was one of the products in the portfolio. It was losing money then and still is. Moreover, in the spring of 2014, Mallinckrodt was told by the existing supplier of the product that they would cease production in early 2016," a Mallinckrodt spokesman said in an email to CBC News. 
 
 Health Canada said it knows where the drug is made but says it considers the information proprietary. 
 
 Mike Bartenhagen of Omaha, Neb., joined an infantile spasm support group after his son, Broc, was diagnosed in 2002. 
 
 Bartenhagen disputes the company's reason for increasing the drug's price. 
 
 "My opinion is that Questcor and Mallinckrodt's opinion on this is 'Hey, good news, we are not screwing you [parents]. We are screwing somebody else,'" such as insurance companies and public health plans. 
 
 Snead thinks governments should demand their money back, saying he's dismayed at the thought of children not getting treated. 
 
 "If the seizures aren't treated, the child will not regain any milestones," such as being able to roll over, Snead said. The seizures can evolve into other kinds of epilepsy, which are not controllable by medication. 
 
 Brief history of Synacthen Depot 
 
 Synacthen Depot, or tetracosactide, is a synthetic version of a hormone secreted by the pituitary gland. 
 
 Novartis sold the international rights for Synacthen Depot to Questcor on June 11, 2013, the same day former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli's former company, Retrophin, was about to sign a deal for the rights, according to documents from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and anti-trust court filings. ||||| Short Seller: Mallinckrodt Still Price Gouging Drug to Treat Seizures in Babies 
 
 This post has been updated to reflect comments from Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals. 
 
 As if Andrew Left needed another reason to be short Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals (MNK). 
 
 On Monday, reports emerged from Canada that the Dublin-based pharmaceutical company abruptly raised the price of Synacthen Depot, a drug used to treat seizures in infants, by 2,000%. 
 
 The sudden price increase -- to $680 a vial from $33.05 -- caused Alberta Health to delist the drug in July, which means that it is no longer paid for by Canada's government-subsidized health care system. 
 
 The price gouging on Synacthen Depot alone is reason enough to raise activist short seller Andrew Left's ire. Left, of Citron Research, has been critical of Mallinckrodt's practices for a long time, and has at times been short the company. Last week, he confirmed on CNBC that he currently has a short position on Mallinckrodt. 
 
 While the 2,000% increase of Synacthen Depot is troubling, it adds another layer to Left's long-standing case against Acthar, another drug owned by Mallinckrodt that is also used to treat spasms associated with seizures in infants. 
 
 Acthar costs $35,000 a vial and is the standard prescribed drug for infantile seizures in the U.S. In 2005, the drug cost $1,235 a vial. The first steep increase in the price of Acthar occured in 2007 , and the price of drug has risen steadily since. Meanwhile, Synacthen Depot, the synthetic form of Acthar, is the standard prescribed drug in Canada to treat infantile seizures. 
 
 "Mallinckrodt is taking the synthetic form of this drug and they're gouging the price on it also," Left said in an interview with Real Money. 
 
 Mallinckrodt defended the rational behind raising the price of Synacthen Depot, saying that the drug had been losing money for years. 
 
 "In the spring of 2014, Mallinckrodt was told by the existing supplier of the product that they would cease production in early 2016," a Mallinkrodt spokesperson told Real Money. "Faced with a product that was losing money and the need to find a new supplier, Mallinckrodt had a choice to make -- take Synacthen off the market or invest in its future." 
 
 The company also said that in addition to the price-hike that it is "also investing significantly in manufacturing and market access," which could mean that the price-hike is a temporary measure. 
 
 Still, the efficacy of the drugs, Acthar and Synacthen Depot, have never been compared against one another, Left said. Instead, the drugs have only been tested against a placebo, which Left says is insufficient for determining the proper standard of care. While it is indeed true that the generic and synthetic form of a drug may not treat an illness in the same manner, it would seem to make sense that they be tested against each other -- especially when there is such a steep difference in price. 
 
 "If you really want to take it a step further -- when you're charging $35,000 -- what you really have to do is [compare] your drug versus the generic form, versus the synthetic form and the placebo," Left said.
– Rapid treatment is of utmost importance for babies diagnosed with infantile spasms, also known as West syndrome, a form of epilepsy that causes seizures and corresponding abnormal bursts of electrical activity in the brain. About half of the babies with it don't respond to the first drug that's tried, meaning doctors then use an injectable drug called Synacthen Depot, which one doctor says works 90% of the time. But Synacthen Depot is the latest drug to cause an uproar after a massive price hike, at least in Canada, CBC reports. "The price of Synacthen Depot increased by more than 2,000% from $33.05 per vial to $680 per vial," says a spokesperson for Alberta Health, which delisted the drug in July. That means it won't be automatically paid for by Canada's government-subsidized health care anymore, TheStreet explains, though exceptions could be made on a case-by-case basis. And as for the price, Fusion explains that the drug requires a six-week course, for a total cost of $14,280. Officials in other Canadian provinces saw a similar hike in the cost of the drug. "This was just dropped like a bombshell," says a Toronto neurologist who is incensed by the price increase. Pharmaceutical company Mallinckrodt owns the rights to the drug in Canada after acquiring another company last year, and a rep says the drug was losing money when the company acquired it. "They just bought it and jacked up the price," says the neurologist. (When Canada tried to lower the price of another drug, it got sued by a US company.)