Brand New Drug for Gout Called Colchicine

Great news on the battle with gout! A pharmaceutical company in Philadelphia PA is producing a new drug called Colcrys. Colcrys is the trade name for a drug called colchicine. Colchicine has recently been shown to reduce gouty attacks with just some side effects of diarrhea and vomiting. It has also been shown to work for prophylaxis. The FDA has approved it as a second line agent for gouty arthritis. I'm very excited about this new drug for those patients who are unable to take an NSAID. You all know how much a hate NSAIDS!
Other than the diarrhea, the only other problem is the cost. Colcrys will cost $4.99 per pill. While this is pricey, especially considering the unapproved drug used for gout called "colchicine" cost only $0.09 per pill, at least this medication is FDA approved for the indication of gout! Of course, that old, cheap drug was not approved because no one had done the study needed for the FDA. Luckily with the Waxman–Hatch Act and the Orphan Drug Act, companies can pay for the research and then make the drug safely as a trade name! The Waxman–Hatch Act and the Orphan Drug Act saves the US money because instead of having the government fund the type of research needed to show the efficacy of these older medications, the pharmaceutical companies do! Think about the cost of funding such a study (according to records it was about $1 million dollars). That sucker of a pharmaceutical company instead funded it! As a 'reward' (ha! 'Reward', those suckers), they get to produce the drug exclusively for the next three years. 
This is great for our patients! Now they will stop taking these cheap, old, unapproved medications for debilitating diseases! I do feel bad for Medicaid, which will have to increase its budget by $50,000,000 per year to pay for the new medication based upon how many medicaid patients were given colchicine last year (recklessly prescribed I might add: there wasn't a good study on it yet, just decades of experience and who can trust that?). 
What a great time to be in health care in the United States. What is best for the general public and our patients always comes first!

Kesselheim A, Solomon D. Incentives for Drug Development — The Curious Case of Colchicine. N Engl J Med. 2010 Jun 3;362(22):2045-7
Zhang W, Doherty M, Bardin T, et al. EULAR evidence based recommendations for gout. II. Management. Ann Rheum Dis 2006;65:1312-1324. 
Terkeltaub RA, Furst DE, Bennett K, Kook KA, Crockett RS, Davis MW. High versus low dosing of oral colchicine for early acute gout flare: twenty-four-hour outcome of the first multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, dose-comparison colchicine study. Arthritis Rheum 2010;62:1060-1068.