by PharmacyChecker.com | Nov 20, 2012 | Drug Importation, Online Pharmacies, Saving Money on Prescription Drugs
Safe online pharmacies outside the U.S. sell popular brand name medicine at prices that average 85% lower than American pharmacies, according to our new analysis of online and local U.S. pharmacy prices. The analysis compares cash prices for top-selling brand name medications in the U.S. to prices for the same medicines abroad. All international online pharmacies in the study are licensed and require prescriptions.
The savings ranged from 82% for Celebrex to 91% for Nexium. Annual dollar savings averaged just over $3,000. The study noted the rising costs of prescription drugs in America and, perhaps surprisingly, the fact that these same drugs are becoming cheaper abroad. Average savings have increased from 80% in March, 2011.
For more information, view the press release. To view price comparisons among online pharmacies, visit PharmacyChecker.com.
Tagged with: affordable prescriptions, Drug Prices, Online Pharmacies, personal drug importation
by PharmacyChecker.com | Aug 8, 2012 | Drug Importation, Drug Prices, Personal Drug Importation
I had a conversation with Gabriel Levitt from PharmacyChecker.com the other day, as I was in search of a Canadian Pharmacy that I could travel to and obtain affordable, needed, drugs. The reason for this “travel” was the recognition of the newest law (the new FDA bill) on the books in the U.S. that any drug under the value of $2,500.00 would (or could) be seized and destroyed by border security agents.
My particular situation is this: I am on blood thinner (anti-coagulate) medicine. I must continue on this medicine for the remainder of my life. A few years ago I had open heart surgery to repair a defective Mitral valve inside my heart. I elected to have an artificial valve installed instead of a “bio” valve (Porcine or bovine). After weighing the options it was pointed out to me that “bio” replacements would not last as long as artificial valves have proved to be. If any of you have had open heart surgery in the past you will share my desire to not do that again. Very painful recovery and many weeks of gaining strength back.
This brings up the only downside of the artificial, compared to “bio”, replacement. My blood has to be thinned and monitored to prevent clots from forming around the replacement valve. This requires the drug Coumadin to be taken daily. All is fine so far.
Here’s the real kick – If I have to have any procedures that might involve bleeding, be it surgery or even as insignificant as tooth extraction, I must wean myself off Coumadin and bridge this time period with one of the heparin derivative drugs. One of the least expensive of these is Lovenox.
The cost of this drug in the US is approximately $1,200.00 per box of ten Syringes. I must self-administer twice a day so this is only a five day supply. My experience with this medicine is that I must refill and administer more before my Coumadin goes takes effect. Ok, so that is another $1,200.00 out of pocket. Even when I was on Medicare part D my out of pocket was still about $420.00 per purchase.
I was in contact with one of the pharmacies in Canada that your organization verifies. The cost at the Canadian pharmacy was about $140.00 per box of ten syringes. Same manufacturer, same dosage, and same freshness.
I ask you, what is the $1,060.00 extra for? I know that the Canadian pharmacies are not selling me this drug at their cost, so they are making a profit, but why the huge difference?
It makes me think that the drug companies here, in the states, are being allowed to make OBSCENE profits by a significant number of members of congress. What else would explain the very large difference in pricing?
This brings us back to the enactment, with lightning speed, this new law provides for the destruction of mail order drugs from “over the border “pharmacies. The law makers established a price of $2,500.00 as a criteria to destroy (or not) these drugs. Interesting!
Well, that is my story. I know I am not the only US citizen that is being held hostage by those that have a vested interest in keeping US drug prices at an apparent, artificial, level. I think the word extortion is repugnant but does it apply is this discussion? Unfortunately, I think so.
To Mr. Gabriel Levitt and the good folks at Pharmacy Checker please feel free to use this letter in any effort to help bring down the cost of drugs in this country. In the short run, to rescind any attempt by lawmakers to prevent my obtaining affordable drugs from Canadian Pharmacies.
Thank you for reading my story. I am not alone.
Mike M
Syracuse, NY
Tagged with: international pharmacies, Open Letter, True Stories
by Tod Cooperman, MD, President, PharmacyChecker.com, and Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com | Jul 24, 2012 | Advocacy, Drug Importation, Drug Prices, Online Pharmacies, Pharmaceutical Industry
A new organization, the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies (CSIP) – safemedsonline.org – made its debut yesterday. Unfortunately, the group seems more focused on keeping its big corporate members in the good graces of the pharmaceutical industry and government than on helping American consumers. In fact, its actions may endanger public health.
This should come as no surprise, as the plan to create the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies was hatched by the White House Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator in 2010 which, as previously reported here, was handed the plan by the pharmaceutical industry. The plan fit very well with the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) legislation which was eventually shelved.
The Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies has two main activities. The first is to educate, or more accurately, “scare,” the public away from using “illegal” pharmacies, which appear to include licensed and safe pharmacies outside the U.S. which sell genuine but lower priced medicine to Americans. The second is to work with the U.S. government to “shut down” chosen online pharmacies by blocking their ability to appear in online searches and to accept payments.
CSIP has handed over the job of deciding which online pharmacies are okay to LegitScript, which has its own suspect past and intentions. All non-US online pharmacies are branded “not approved” by LegitScript on the basis that it’s technically illegal to personally import most medications – even though the government, in its wisdom, has permitted it. Moreover, it appears that LegitScript is essentially a private sector extension of the FDA as evidenced by its $2.6 million government contract.
As part of its launch, the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies produced a scare video showing a caring, young woman go online to research and order lower-priced medication online for an elderly relative. The relative then falls ill and the young woman worries that the medicine may have been fake or even “rat poison” and, through the miracle of video, the clock is rolled back, the medicine is never ordered, and all is somehow well without the medicine.
This far-fetched horror flick is far more likely to scare people away from affordable medicine than keep them safe. It’s an indisputable fact that for more than a decade millions of Americans, many of whom have trouble paying for prescription medication in the United States, have safely filled their prescriptions, at much lower prices, through online pharmacies in Canada and other countries. Independent research has also shown that medicine ordered from sites approved by PharmacyChecker.com or the VIPPS Program is genuine. If CSIP’s well-funded public relations team could have found a person who was actually injured by ordering medicine with a prescription from an online pharmacy, they would not have had to create a fictitious character and story.
It is well document that tens of tens of millions of Americans go without medication each year due to cost and suffer real illness as a result. Keeping them “safe” means helping Americans find affordable medicine – not cutting a lifeline to it.
There are plenty of rogue pharmacies out there which CSIP can help root out – ones that sell fake medicine and don’t require prescriptions. We hope CSIP decides to focus all of its attention on these real dangers. If not, the real horror story could turn out to be CSIP itself when its actions increase the number of people who go without needed medication or are left impoverished due to prices at pharmacies of which CSIP “approves.”
Tagged with: Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies, CSIP, Drug Prices, LegitScript, Online Pharmacies, Online Pharmacy Verification Services, PIPA, SOPA
by PharmacyChecker.com | Jul 20, 2012 | Counterfeit Drugs, Drug Importation, Online Pharmacies
For the last six months the WSJ has actively reported on fake Avastin purchased by some medical clinics in the United States. The latest report focuses on the fact that the owner of the foreign wholesaler that shipped the fake Avastin to the U.S. is also the owner of a large international online pharmacy called CanadaDrugs.com. The WSJ reporting makes it clear that the wholesale business is separate from CanadaDrugs.com.
CanadaDrugs.com is a long-standing member of the PharmacyChecker.com Verification Program. It takes orders online filled by licensed pharmacies that require a valid prescription. It does not sell Avastin and the WSJ didn’t report any safety problems associated with its operation.
PharmacyChecker.com’s programs are designed to provide information to consumers seeking safe and affordable medication online for their own use. We recognize that importation by medical clinics does occur and the reason is that drug prices of many drugs are unusually high in the United States. We believe that wholesale drug importation presents unique drug supply and safety challenges that should be addressed but are not related to personal drug importation.
Tagged with: avastin, CanadaDrugs.com, Counterfeit Drugs, personal drug importation, Wall Street Journal
by PharmacyChecker.com | Jul 6, 2012 | Drug Importation, Drug Prices, Saving Money on Prescription Drugs
A new study, reviewed in Medpage Today, finds that seniors falling into the Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage gap, often referred to as the “doughnut hole,” reduced the number of monthly anti-depressant prescriptions they filled by 12.1% compared to those with full coverage. In 2012, Part D plans share drug costs with enrollees up to $2,930. With co-pays, premiums, and deductibles seniors pay about $1,500 up to that point. After $2,930 the doughnut hole begins and plan enrollees pay out-of-pocket until they have spent $4,700 – after which the plans pay for 95% of drug costs.
The study also showed that those in the doughnut hole were more likely to go without other medications. Monthly use of heart failure drugs and anti-diabetics fell by 12.9% and 13.4%, respectively, relative to the group with full drug coverage. The study, Effects of Medicare Part D Coverage On Medication and Medical Treatment On Elderly Beneficiaries With Depression, was published in the July issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.
We’ve previously reported that the doughnut hole is a serious health issue for America’s seniors who are unable to afford needed medication. The new healthcare law offers seniors substantial discounts in the doughnut hole on brand name medications, and by 2020 the doughnut hole will supposedly be closed. The discounts help seniors to access medicine, but the crisis of skipped medicine will persist through the decade. Until then, it’s critical that seniors do not stop taking needed medications.
Medicare enrollees in the doughnut hole face very high drug costs for popular products such as Lexapro, Cymbalta and Abilify, all used to treat depression. These very medications are, on average, 80% less expensive if ordered from the lowest priced verified online pharmacies. See the chart below for price comparisons of verified international online pharmacies and a U.S. bricks and mortar pharmacy.
Prices for Three-month Supplies of Popular Anti-Depressants
| Drug |
U.S. Bricks and Mortar Pharmacy* |
Lowest Pharmacy-Checker.com Listed Price** |
Savings Over 3 Months |
Percent Savings |
Savings Over 1 Year |
| Abilify 10 mg |
$1,881.99 |
$332.10 |
$1,549.89 |
82.35% |
$6.199.56 |
| Cymbalta 30 mg |
$637.00 |
$133.20 |
$503.80 |
79.09% |
$6,199.56 |
| Lexapro 10 mg |
$351.00 |
$84.61 |
$266.40 |
75.90% |
$1,065.60 |
| Average: |
$956.66 |
$183.30 |
$773.36 |
80.84% |
$3,093 |
* Pharmacy in New York City, price collected 7/5/2012
**Lowest price listed on PharmacyChecker.com as of 7/5/2012
Tagged with: affordable prescriptions, Anti-depressants, Drug Prices, Online Pharmacies, personal drug importation, pharmacychecker.com, prescription non-adherence, save money, skipped medicine
by PharmacyChecker.com | Jun 18, 2012 | Advocacy, Drug Importation, Online Pharmacies
This Op-ed by our vice president, Gabriel Levitt, was first published in the popular Opinion/Controversy website – Opposing Views. We’re re-publishing the op-ed below.
Eleven years ago, an eighteen year old American named Ryan Haight tragically died from
an overdose of Vicodin, purchased online without a prescription. The Vicodin was real, not fake. In Niger, a much larger tragedy occurred – 2,500 people died out of 50,000 who were inoculated with bogus medication. The worst tragedy in recent U.S. history was the death of 238 Americans after ingesting fake Heparin found in the legal U.S. drug supply in 2007 and 2008. The Institute of Medicine reports that 100,000 Americans die each year due to prescription drug errors here in the USA.
What do all of these disparate and depressing statistics have in common? They have nothing to do with personal drug importation from properly credentialed online pharmacies. And yet opponents of safe importation insist that it is not safe, an assertion that runs contrary to the evidence.
A recent study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, called “Unveiling
the Mystery of Online Pharmacies: an Audit Study,” shows that Americans who purchase
medicine from properly credentialed non-US online pharmacies receive genuine (not fake)
medication at much lower prices than U.S. pharmacies. In this study mystery purchases of
popular brand name drugs were tested for authenticity. All tested medications that were ordered from U.S. and non-U.S. websites approved by PharmacyChecker.com, National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, LegitScript.com, and the Canadian International Pharmacy Association were found to be authentic. Some non-credentialed website purchases failed testing.
A few weeks back Senator John McCain introduced an amendment to the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) to facilitate personal drug importation from credentialed Canadian online pharmacies. Unfortunately, while the larger bill passed, McCain’s amendment failed 54-43. Even worse, though removed from the Senate version by unanimous consent, the House version of PDUFA, which passed with overwhelming support, contains a section – 805 – that authorizes the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to seize and destroy safely imported genuine medication valued at $2,000 or less. Since imported medication valued under $2,000 is for “personal use” the language was clearly aimed at destroying medication ordered internationally, often online, by individual Americans.
The putative goal of Section 805 is to protect Americans from counterfeit and dangerous drugs. In reality it will only hurt patients by blocking their ability to obtain affordable medication. Other parts of PDUFA contain forward thinking measures to protect us from counterfeit and substandard drugs, such as increasing penalties against drug counterfeiters, strengthening registration requirements on, and improving inspections of, foreign drug manufacturers. It also has provisions that could help bring needed pediatric medicines to market faster. But seizing and destroying safe personal imports will not help solve the counterfeit drug problem. Moreover, tens of millions of Americans don’t fill prescriptions each year due to the high cost of medication – 48 million in 2010 according to the Commonwealth Fund. Aggravating this public health crisis by destroying people’s prescription drug orders will result in more sickness, hospitalizations and death.
About a million Americans rely on safe non-US online pharmacies. If Section 805 is not
removed from PDUFA then DHS will seize and destroy safe prescription drug orders en
route to patients. That is medically unethical and a threat to public health. Section 805 must be removed from the final bill to avoid even more Americans going without needed medication.
First published here: http://www.opposingviews.com/i/health/conditions/eliminate-counterfeit-drugs-don-t-curb-access-safe-and-affordable-medication
Tagged with: avastin, Counterfeit Drugs, Gabriel Levitt, NBER, Opposing Views, PDUFA
