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Bharat Desai is an internal medicine and pulmonary physician.

How Acthar Gel became a $250,000 drug

Bharat Desai, MD
Physician
November 19, 2025

It started with a phone call.

“Doc,” my CEO said, “do you know this doctor?”

I asked why.

“He wrote a prescription for a drug that cost $250,000 for one course.”

“You must mean $25,000,” I said.

“No,” she replied. “The insurer already paid two hundred fifty thousand dollars.”

I assumed it had to be a miracle therapy, some one-in-a-million life-saving treatment. Then she told me the name: Acthar Gel. I nearly fell out of my …

Read more…

How Acthar Gel became a $250,000 drug

Was Viagra the best heart drug we never had?

Bharat Desai, MD
Conditions
October 15, 2025

Prologue: the lost opportunity

Everyone knows Viagra as the “little blue pill” that revolutionized the bedroom. But what if its greatest potential was never about sex, but about saving lives?

A long-term study from Manchester followed men with both diabetes and a prior heart attack, about as high-risk a group as you can imagine. The results were astonishing: those who used sildenafil (Viagra) had a thirty-eight percent lower risk of another …

Read more…

Was Viagra the best heart drug we never had?

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  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • Politics and fear have replaced science in U.S. pain management [PODCAST]

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    • The controversy over Maintenance of Certification for grandfathered physicians

      Bernard Leo Remakus, MD | Physician
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      Timothy Lesaca, MD | Physician
    • The Schism of Time: Bridging the generational gap in the workplace

      Seleipiri Akobo, MD, MPH, MBA | Physician
  • Past 6 Months

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      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • From Singapore to Canada: a blueprint for primary care transformation

      Ivy Oandasan, MD | Policy
    • How board certification fuels the physician shortage crisis

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  • Recent Posts

    • Health insurance incentives and alternatives to opioids for chronic pain

      Molly Candon, PhD and Daniel Clauw, MD | Conditions
    • Independent medical practice: Why private clinics are essential

      Marcelo Hochman, MD | Physician
    • How hindsight bias distorts clinical medicine

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      Joshua Mirrer, MD | Physician
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