Device maker Olympus hiked prices for scopes as superbug infections spread

Soon after doctors at UCLA’s Ronald Reagan Medical Center traced deadly infections to tainted medical scopes last year, they pressed the device maker to lend them replacements. But Olympus Corp. refused. Instead, the Tokyo company offered to sell UCLA 35 new scopes for $1.2 million — a 28 percent increase in price from what it charged the university just months earlier, according to university emails obtained from a public-records request.