Marathon Pharmaceuticals is only 6 years old, but this week's uproar surrounding its $89,000 muscular dystrophy drug isn't the first time the company — or its CEO — has faced outrage over drug pricing.

Monday, only four days after it received regulatory approval to market a drug to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Northbrook-based Marathon said it would pause the commercial launch of the drug whose price shocked patient advocates and members of Congress.

The company, which focuses on rare neurological diseases, attracted similar criticism in 2014 after it raised prices on two heart medications. And in 2008, a separate company founded by Marathon CEO Jeffrey Aronin faced a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit related to drug pricing and competition, though that lawsuit was ultimately dismissed.

This time around, it is Marathon's drug deflazacort, which will be sold under the brand name Emflaza, that is under the microscope. While approved only last week by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the medication to improve muscle function in those with Duchenne has been available outside the U.S. for years. Some U.S. patients have been importing it from abroad for as little as about $1,200 a year.

The drug isn't a cure for the muscle wasting disease, which mostly affects boys who typically die in their 20s or 30s, but it aims to improve muscle function in those with the disorder.

Efforts to reach Marathon CEO Jeffrey Aronin were not successful Tuesday, and a Marathon spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.

Marathon and Aronin have been criticized in the past for the company's drug prices, in one case by the same lawmakers now asking it to reconsider its deflazacort price.

After Marathon acquired two heart drugs, Isuprel and Nitropress, from Hospira in 2013, the prices of both drugs increased by nearly 400 percent, according to a letter Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., wrote to Marathon in 2014 to request information for an investigation into the prices.

Marathon's muscular dystrophy drug delayed after lawmakers question $89,000 price tag Lisa Schencker

A Northbrook pharmaceutical company is "pausing" its commercial launch of a newly approved drug for muscular dystrophy — a medication with an $89,000 price tag that has shocked patient advocates and members of Congress.

Marathon Pharmaceuticals' deflazacort, used to treat patients with a fatal...

A Northbrook pharmaceutical company is "pausing" its commercial launch of a newly approved drug for muscular dystrophy — a medication with an $89,000 price tag that has shocked patient advocates and members of Congress.

Marathon Pharmaceuticals' deflazacort, used to treat patients with a fatal...

(Lisa Schencker)

Marathon ultimately sold the two drugs to Valeant Pharmaceuticals International.

Also, in 2008, the FTC sued Ovation Pharmaceuticals, a Deerfield-based company also founded and led by Aronin. The FTC accused Ovation of violating antitrust laws by acquiring NeoProfen — the only drug in competition with a drug it already owned, Indocin, to treat a congenital heart defect affecting babies born prematurely.

Marathon then raised the price of Indocin by nearly 1,300 percent, from $36 to nearly $500 a vial, the FTC alleged. A federal court, however, dismissed the case in 2010, finding the two drugs were in separate product markets, and a federal appeals court affirmed that decision.

Ovation ultimately was sold to pharmaceutical company H. Lundbeck in 2009 for $900 million. Aronin served as Lundbeck's CEO and president after the acquisition.

Aronin then went on to found Marathon. The Marathon website describes Aronin as a "business leader, life science investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist." He was appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to the board of World Business Chicago and is a founder of Matter, a nonprofit health care technology incubator in Chicago.

FDA approves Northbrook company's $89,000 muscular dystrophy drug Lisa Schencker

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved a Northbrook pharmaceutical company's drug to treat a deadly form of childhood-onset muscular dystrophy — only the second FDA-approved drug for the disease and the first for everyone with the disorder.

Marathon Pharmaceutical's deflazacort,...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved a Northbrook pharmaceutical company's drug to treat a deadly form of childhood-onset muscular dystrophy — only the second FDA-approved drug for the disease and the first for everyone with the disorder.

Marathon Pharmaceutical's deflazacort,...

(Lisa Schencker)

In a 2015 interview with the Tribune, Aronin said he's focused his companies on drugs for rare diseases because of the difference they can make in patients' lives.

"I always worked for those little niches because I felt like I was able to make a big impact on patients' lives, and I felt there was an unmet need," Aronin said. "I was able to really grow those products and see the real impact even though the numbers weren't as big as with the largest brands — they call them blockbuster drugs."

Aronin's Marathon has been growing rapidly, especially in recent months. Marathon about doubled its number of employees from 48 in August to more than 100 now, Tim Cunniff, Marathon executive vice president for research and development, told the Tribune last week.

In their letter Monday to Aronin, Sanders and Cummings called the $89,000 price for deflazacort "unconscionable."

In his Monday letter, Aronin emphasized that the company expected the drug would be covered by insurers, so patients would pay no more than a $20 copay per prescription.

He said the company set the price at $89,000 based on the resources it invested to bring the drug to market and complete clinical studies, as well as to fund future research and ensure broad patient access through insurer reimbursement and its own assistance programs.

Like Marathon, a number of companies in recent years have faced criticism for increasing prices for drugs they did not create, but rather bought.

"Any time you have a drug company raising prices, they're going to talk about their patents and innovation," said Michael Carrier, a law professor at Rutgers University who specializes in intellectual property and antitrust law in pharmaceuticals. "To the extent that this looks like an investment opportunity for a company coming in after all the hard work has already been done then that innovation-based argument seem less persuasive."

But Paul Howard, director of health policy at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, said the Marathon case is unique in that Marathon had to usher the drug through the FDA approval process — it didn't just take an old drug and resell it.

"Marathon did something important, and I think that sets it apart from some of the other regulatory arbitrage that … others have done," Howard said.

lschencker@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @lschencker

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