The potentially life-saving medicine is used to treat patients suffering from brain tumors and Hodgkin's lymphoma.

The price of the cancer drug lomustine has soared to nearly 1400 percent since 2013, after it was bought by a startup in Miami, U.S.

While originally sold by Bristol-Myers Squib for decades under the brand name CeeNU for about US$50 a capsule, it now goes for US$768 per pill, thanks to startup NextSource’s price hikes.

According to Henry S. Friedman, a professor of neurosurgery at Duke University School of Medicine, NextSource has engaged in “price-gouging”, telling the Wall Street Journal, "People are not going to be able to afford it, or they're going to pay a lot of money and have financial liability.”

The medicine is used to treat patients suffering from brain tumors and Hodgkin's lymphoma, and can be potentially life-saving.

NextSource CEO Robert DiCrisci has justified the gargantuan price hikes by saying it sets the price based on the costs it incurs in developing the medication.