Serpent profiteers: how a summer camp snakebite turned into a $142,938 medical bill

Last July, a nine year old child named Oakley Yoder got bitten on the toe by a venomous snake while at summer camp in Jackson Falls, Illinois: the initial bill for her treatment came out to $142,938.

A big chunk of that was for the air ambulance: $55,577.64. But the largest item on the bill was $67,957 for four vials of antivenin from the UK pharmaceutical monopolist BTG Plc, whose product, Crofab, retails for $3,198 in the USA (a Mexican rival that cannot be legally imported to the USA costs $200/dose).

The St. Vincent Evansville hospital marked up the antivenin (already marked up by 16,000%, from $200 to $3,198) to $16,989.25, a further 500% -- that's 85 times the price that Yoder and her insurer would have paid in Mexico.

The family's insurer, IU Health Plans, negotiated the overall price down to $107,863.33, and a supplemental insurance plan that the family took out for summer camp covered $7,286.34 in additional costs. The family didn't have to pay anything (but every insured person will end up paying a little more in future premiums to ensure that IU and its competitors remain wildly profitable).

The FDA has since approved a different Mexican antivenin product called Anavip that will retail for $1,220; the product's entry to the US market was delayed by six years due to a patent claim by monopolist BTG Plc whose settlement has contributed to Anavip's high price, which now includes a royalty paid to BTG for every vial sold, until BTG's patent expires in 2028. Read the rest