Yes, I have heard about this:
Panel Recommends that FDA Approve Fampridine-SR (proposed name Amaya) for Symptomatic Treatment of MS — Found to improve walking speed for all types of MS
A U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory committee today recommended that the agency approve marketing of Fampridine-SR (Acorda Therapeutics, with a proposed name change to Amaya) for its ability to improve walking speed in people with any type of multiple sclerosis. While the FDA is not required to follow the recommendations of its advisory committees, it usually does. The agency is expected to make a final decision about whether to approve the drug for market on or before the target date of October 22, 2009.
I have written about before, here. It’s an interesting lesson in capitalism. 4-AP/Fampridine, you see, is an avicide. Yep, airports and farmers use it to kill birds. You can get your pharmacist to compound the generic quick release stuff for about $50 a month. But now it has a fancy name, and will probably cost… Well, my guess Acorda will charge us poor sad cripples around $1,000 a month. For bird poison. Go capitalism!
Nicola Griffith 
Hey Nicola, that sounds dangerously….COMMIE. You wouldn't want EVERYBODY to have heath care, would you? Suspicious! Pinko! UGH.
The philosopher's stone is priceless, and here we are, still soaking the sick.
I dont think the fda will approve it unless it actually harms us in some way.
Almost everything they approved has some major long term affects on us.
During the Bush administration the FDA got less independent than it should have been. I don't know what's happening there now, whether it's been cleaned up or not.
I shouldn't think it's been cleaned up.
What I wanna know is, what in God's name prompted anyone to think that an agent that kills birds might help any human do anything? And, what does this mean, improve walking speed? How can a drug improve walking speed? Increased strength, stamina, balance and mobility, gained through physical therapy can lead to increased walking stability and speed, but not some magic pill. Come on! The manufacturer (and of course the doctors who get kickbacks from them) are playing on the vulnerability of MS patients.
I assume they are using very small amounts of this avicide… We put poisons into our body all of the time. Even our drinking water has traces of arsenic in it.
How can a drug improve walking speed? Our bodies are chemical machines. Change the chemistry, change the dynamicity of the mechanism.
“4-AP blocks potassium channels on the surface of nerve fibers and may improve conduction of electrical impulses through nerves whose protective myelin sheath has been damaged or destroyed by MS.“
I hope that this turns out to really work and not have side effects that make it unreasonable to use.
Jennifer, thanks for the helpful science lesson. One of the wonders of science to me is the wildly serendipitous uses to which research is put. The effective medicine for my dad's tuberculosis came from research on solid rocket fuel, of all things.
How refreshing to have some one actually write common sense instead of ill informed diatribe. Thank you Jennifer d
Del, no ill-informed diatribes here. Only highly-informed, well-educated (occasionally ironic–but usually not) rants.
The wholesale price of Ampyra (what this proprietary version of 4-AP will be named) is $1,056. A month. Wholesale. It is 4-AP–molecularly identical to the stuff you get in a compounding pharmacy–wrapped in slow-release packaging.
I don't know what the retail price will be–something in the $1,200 a month would be my guess–but I simply don't see how a few (not a lot) human trials of an already well-known drug, plus a slow-release formula, can add a thousand dollars a month to a drug that cost very little to manufacture.
So, Go Capitalism.
I am one of the POOR Cripples that you put down who take Amprya.
Well, it is working. How dare you make fun of people who have health problems.
Shame on YOU !!!
Anon, perhaps you didn't see, the word 'us' in the post. Perhaps you should learn some manners. Even so, I hope the 30-times-what-it-should-cost drug is working out for you.