Colchicine... I thought I heard of that before, and now I remember the government intervention:
Oral colchicine has been used for many years as an unapproved drug with no FDA-approved prescribing information, dosage recommendations, or drug interaction warnings. On July 29, 2009 U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved colchicine as a monotherapy for the treatment of familial Mediterranean fever and acute gout flares, and gave 7-year marketing exclusivity to URL Pharma, in exchange for URL Pharma doing 2 new studies. URL Pharma raised the price from $0.09 per pill to $4.85, and sued to remove other versions from market.
So, used to be real cheap, and you could get it from any number of producers (it's just a plant extract after all) but then the FDA got involved and decided to rape everyone's wallet once again with a "won't somebody think of the children" excuse. So it's not bad enough that you have to go through the pain, but now it's like getting your preparation H switched with capsaicin.