aint Thomas Outpatient Neurosurgical Center paid a compounding pharmacy $6.50 a dose for the steroid medications blamed for making dozens of its patients sick and causing meningitis deaths, according to a new court filing.
An amended complaint filed Tuesday includes the clinic’s invoices from New England Compounding Center for 80 mg vials of preservative-free methylprednisolone acetate — a generic version of the brand-name drug Depo-Medrol. The court papers allege price was “the only motivation” for the pain clinic to make bulk purchases of the generic drug from the compounding pharmacy.
The clinic has yet to file an answer to the allegations made in the complaints, which give only one side of a legal dispute.
New England Compounding, which had a history of regulatory violations, shut down after inspections by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy documented multiple safety concerns, including dirty equipment.
Attorneys William Leader and George Nolan assert that other compounders charged more for the drug in the amended complaint they filed on behalf of Fred May and his wife, Loduska May of Murfreesboro. Fred May contracted fungal meningitis after undergoing multiple epidural steroid injections last summer — procedures that cost him as much as $1,000.
Drug prices can fluctuate due to supply and demand, but $6.50 per dose is less than some other pain clinics reported they were paying when the meningitis outbreak occurred. Dr. Tim Smyth, a Johnson City anesthesiologist, told The Tennessean last October that he typically paid between $15 and $20 for the compounded version of the drug, which was about half the rate of brand-name medication.
The amended complaint also added a new defendant, Saint Thomas Hospital — a half owner of the clinic. The original defendants in the case were the pain clinic and Howell Allen Clinic, the clinic’s other half owner.
The lawyers contend that the clinic is an agent of the hospital because they share a common name and the clinic is located on the hospital campus.
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