Crucial Antibiotic Rescues ViroPharma Incorporated's Finances

Roche, whose drug Tamiflu is in great demand as a preparation for a possible influenza pandemic, is not the only company reaping a financial windfall from a treatment for a contagious disease. And in this case, the health threat is not merely a potential one. ViroPharma, a formerly struggling biotechnology company, sells Vancocin, the only drug approved to treat Clostridium difficile, a bacterium that already kills thousands of people a year in this country and is apparently becoming more common and more deadly. The life-saving drug has turned out to be a financial lifesaver for ViroPharma which, almost by serendipity, acquired the American rights to Vancocin last November. Since then, in response to rising demand, the company has increased the price of the drug - its only product - three times by a total of 80 percent, to about $800 for a course of treatment. With Vancocin sales expected to more than double this year to $120 million, ViroPharma, based in Exton, Pa., is profitable for the first time in its 11-year history. Its stock price is up 14-fold since reaching a 52-week low in April. On Monday, it rose nearly 15 percent, after the company announced higher-than-expected third-quarter profit and raised its estimate for sales of Vancocin this year, then it declined 91 cents yesterday, to $23.19. But some doctors say the price increases are exploiting growing fears of the bacterium, while placing a burden on patients and those who take care of them. "It's absolutely outrageous," Dr. Daniel M. Musher, an infectious-disease specialist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston, said of the price increases. ViroPharma executives, as well as some other doctors and Wall Street analysts, defend the price as still relatively low compared with some other antibiotics like Azactam from Elan and Zyvox from Pfizer that are used to treat other infections. Those drugs can cost $1,000 to $2,000 for a course of treatment. They note, too, that ViroPharma has started a program to provide the drug free to those who cannot afford it.