by PharmacyChecker.com | Aug 16, 2012 | Drug Prices, Generic drugs, Online Pharmacies
A recent New York Times article highlights the dramatically rising prices of prescription skin care products in the United States. When it comes to skin care, popular generic creams, ointments, and lotions are getting far more expensive – take a look at the chart below:
![](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/images/newsgraphics/2012/0810-dermatology/0810-web-DERMATOLOGY.png)
Triamcinolone
acetonide
cream
Betamethasone
dipropionate
cream
As prices climb domestically, they remain stable and comparatively low abroad. While most generic medicines are often cheaper in the U.S. than in other countries, some popular skin care products are exceptions. Examples are shown below:
We found that the average savings by using an international online pharmacy were over 70% when compared to U.S.-based bricks-and-mortar and online pharmacies. If you decide to order from abroad, make sure the online pharmacy is PharmacyChecker.com approved by looking for the PharmacyChecker.com seal.
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 Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com and Sam Werbalowsky, Pharmacychecker.com | Jul 31, 2012 | Drug Prices, Pharmaceutical Industry, Politics
![48 people bought HIV medications and other prescription drugs from Medicaid recipients and sold them to unsuspecting buyers.](http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/120406011331-prescription-drugs-generic-story-top.jpg)
Picture from CNN coverage of the Medicaid Fraud
The pharmaceutical industry and FDA seem to want us to buy medicine at high prices. They say it’s dangerous to import cheaper medicine, even though it’s been shown to be safe when done through pharmacies approved by PharmacyChecker.com. In fact, recent events show that their supported high drug prices can cause major drug safety problems right here at home.
Forty-eight people in a nationwide Medicaid fraud syndicate were recently arrested for buying prescription drugs from Medicaid recipients and re-selling them. The medications included Zyprexa for Schizophrenia, Atripla and Trivizir for HIV/AIDS, and also asthma medications. As reported in the Wall Street Journal and CNN, the drugs made their way through a black market to a supply chain of “collectors” and “aggregators”, eventually working their way into wholesale companies and pharmacies in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Utah, Nevada, Louisiana, and Alabama. The medications were also sold in bodegas on the street.
Medicaid fraud is not new but the scope of this will cost taxpayers $500,000,000. The scariest thing about this fraud is that the drugs made it into licensed pharmacies throughout the United States. These drugs could have been adulterated, mishandled, or improperly stored – they may no longer be safe.
What lessons should we learn from this? Here are two to consider:
- High drug prices helped create this black market, weakening the U.S. drug supply
- As a result, American taxpayers bear the burden of higher healthcare costs.
High drug prices helped create this black market, weakening the U.S. drug supply
Medicaid patients sold their drugs because it was highly profitable, despite consequences to their own health. Pharmacies bought from black market wholesalers because their prices were cheaper. End-users bought medicine they needed from bodegas and street corners because it was cheaper than a trip to the pharmacy.
In countries with much lower drug prices there is less incentive for this type of fraud. We’ve made price comparisons among the types of prescription drugs fraudulently sold in the U.S. by looking at U.S. and international pharmacy prices.
Savings On Popular Medications Found in Fraud
Drug |
US Bricks-and –Mortar price |
Lowest International Price Found on PharmacyChecker.com |
Savings |
Percent Savings |
1 year savings |
Atripla |
$18,000.00 |
$4,012.20 |
$13,987.80 |
77.71% |
$55,951.20 |
Truvada |
$4,500.00 |
$1,716.00 |
$2,784.00 |
61.87% |
$11,136.00 |
Zyprexa Generic 5mg |
$1,161.00 |
$40.50 |
$1,120.50 |
96.51% |
$4,482.00 |
Advair 250-50 mcg |
$947.97 |
$139.00 |
$808.97 |
85.34% |
$3,235.88 |
All prices collected on 7/19/2012. Bricks-and-Mortar pharmacy located in New York City
American taxpayers bear the burden of higher healthcare costs:
We paid taxes for Medicaid beneficiaries to not take their medicine as prescribed, and to instead sell their medicine. We paid the costs of hospitalization and emergency room visits for these people who went without needed medication and maybe even the end-users, who took potentially adulterated medicine.
It’s also likely that Medicaid was double-billed for the same exact pills: the first time when a Medicaid recipient received it; the second time when it was dispensed again from another pharmacy that received it from black market channels.
Despite problems with our distribution system, the U.S. has one of the world’s safest pharmaceutical supplies. However, the U.S. is not alone in having safe medication – not even close. The pharmaceutical industry and their supported groups fool consumers, elected officials and the media into believing that online pharmacies outside the United States are all dangerous, which, to be polite, is factually inaccurate. Let’s bring some balance to the issue and look at the drug supply problems in our own backyard. The problems here are serious, too, and fraud like this could even be prevented if there were easier access to safe and affordable medication.
Tagged with: Drug Prices, FDA, Fraud, medicaid
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 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 28, 2012 | Advocacy, Drug Prices, Personal Drug Importation, Skipping medications
Americans die and get sicker every day because they can’t afford their medications.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will help provide health insurance for millions of Americans, reducing the cost of their medications. But we’re not there yet! We’ve compiled statistics – see below – on the negative health effects of prescription non-adherence due to cost. Our country needs greater access to safe and affordable medication now, including through verified international online pharmacies that offer far lower prices on essential medications.
Here are the stats:
- 25 million Americans report becoming sicker because they are not taking medication due to its cost. 1
- An estimated 150 million prescriptions go unfilled each year due to prescription costs.2,3
- 125,000 deaths occur per year among patients with heart disease due to prescription non-adherence. And that’s just for heart disease. The number of deaths per year among all conditions due to cost-related non-adherence is unknown. 4
- Americans who skip medication due to cost are almost twice as likely to experience a significant decline in overall health over 2 years of follow up.5
- USA Today/Kaiser Family Foundation/ Harvard School of Public Health Health Care Costs Survey, 2005. 20% of survey respondents report not filling a prescription due to cost; and 54% of those said their condition got worse as a result. Extrapolated to the 2012 population of adults 18 and older, (234,564,071), that is 25 million.
- McCarthy R. The Price You Pay for the Drug Not Taken. Business Health 1998. Reports that 20% of prescriptions go unfilled, and 15% of those go unfilled because the drug costs are too high.
- IMS National Prescription Audit PLUS reports 4.024 billion prescriptions dispensed in 2011. If 80% of prescriptions written are dispensed, then 5.03 billion prescriptions were written. 15% of 20% of 5.03 billion is around 150 million prescriptions forgone due to cost.
- McCarthy, R. The Price You Pay for the Drug Not Taken.Business Health 1998. Quote from Daniel Gerner, chairman at the time of Healthcare Compliance Packaging Council.
- Heisler et. al, The Health Effects of Restricting Prescription Medication Use Because of Cost. Medical Care, Volume 42, Number 7, July 2004
Tagged with: ACA, Affordable Healthcare Act, Drug Prices, prescription non-adherence