by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | May 6, 2016 | Drug Prices
Millions of American consumers are buying medication online from pharmacies outside the U.S. at much lower prices than at home but some are not doing it safely. Since 2003, we at PharmacyChecker.com have been checking the credentials of online pharmacies to help you stay safe, as well as making it easy for you to compare and find the lowest drug prices. For those who may be unfamiliar with how we do this, we’ve created a slideshow.
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The slideshow explains that the main reason many drug prices are lower online is because drugs are often much less expensive outside the United States. It’s that plain and simple. People can save as much as 95% on their medications. And while the U.S. FDA discourages people from getting their medication this way and generally considers it not to be legal, no one has ever been prosecuted for purchasing medication for themselves this way.
Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites selling medication are not verified for safety, don’t require a prescription, and may sell counterfeit, adulterated and expired medication. In contrast, medications ordered from online pharmacies verified by PharmacyChecker.com are dispensed from licensed pharmacies that require valid prescriptions and meet high safety standards.
I hope the slideshow is helpful and encourage you to share it with others.
Tagged with: Drug Prices, international pharmacies, Slideshow
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Apr 29, 2016 | Drug Prices
Executives from Valeant Pharmaceuticals were lambasted about their pernicious business strategy by members of the Senate Special Committee on Aging at a congressional hearing this past Wednesday. I’m glad the hot spotlight continues to shine on the faces of pharmaceutical company executives for runaway drug prices in America, but let’s not go too far differentiating Valeant from many other bigger pharmaceutical companies. While there are important nefarious nuances to Valeant’s practices, their executives were essentially called out for trying to do what all drug company business executives do: make as much money as they possibly can.
Valeant Chief Executive J. Michael Pearson’s contrite response was surreal: “Let me state plainly that it was a mistake to pursue, and in hindsight I regret pursuing, transactions where a central premise was a planned increase in the price of medicines.” I’m sure Mr. Pearson has regrets – even pharma execs feel bad about what they have done – but is the regret really felt for pursuing a business strategy of maximizing drug prices in the U.S. market? As a rational business actor, that’s what his job is as CEO of a publicly-traded company. Isn’t that what all CEO’s of pharmaceutical companies do? Yes, but…
Valeant is viewed as particularly pernicious because its price hikes for critical medications Nitropress, Isuprel, Syprine, and Cupermine, were 310%, 720%, 3,200%, and 6000%, respectively. Even worse these medications are old drugs, not new innovative medications. Those increases make average patented, brand name drug price increases of almost 15% in 2015 look paltry, even when that average exceeded inflation in leaps and bounces, which was under 1%.
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Tagged with: Aging Committee, phrma, Susan Collins, Valeant
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Apr 22, 2016 | Health Insurance
As much as Americans overall are struggling to afford prescription medication, the problem is even worse in the Hispanic community. First of all, the uninsured rate is much higher among Hispanics and therefore they are more likely to pay the full cash drug price at the pharmacy. Sadly, studies show that Hispanics are even more likely to just not take prescribed medication at all because of cost. While of course most Hispanics living in the U.S. speak English – 38% speak mainly Spanish.
And check this out: there are more Spanish speakers living in the U.S. than in Spain! About 53 million overall, with 11 million of them native English-speakers who are bilingual. So the prescription savings information that is now in Spanish on PharmacyChecker.com could be a great boon to tens of millions of Americans and immigrants living in the U.S.
People who don’t take their prescribed medications can get sick, end up in the hospital or die. No one living in the United States should have to go without medication because of cost and our new Spanish site will potentially help fewer people make that decision.
Tagged with: community, Hispanic, Spanish
