by Tod Cooperman, M.D., CEO, PharmacyChecker.com | Mar 31, 2016 | Cancer Drugs, Drug Prices
There has been a lot of news this week about the outrageously high cost of Xtandi, a drug for advanced prostate cancer. Although developed with funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), Xtandi (enzalutamide) is being sold to Americans at about four times the price at which it is sold in other countries. In January, a petition was sent to have the U.S. government step in and require that Xtandi be priced more fairly for Americans. More recently, several congresspeople and senators, including Bernie Sanders, reiterated this request with their own letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Director of the NIH.
According to the petition, the Japanese company licensed to sell Xtandi, Astellas Pharma Inc., and its U.S. marketing partner, Medivation Inc. charge an average wholesale price of $88.48 per 40 mg capsule in the U.S. However, in Japan the price is just $26.37, in Australia, it is $23.46, and just across the border in Canada the price is only $20.12.
If you only had to take a few capsules of Xtandi for a short time, this might not be such a big deal. But a standard dose of Xtandi is 4 capsules per day for months at a time. That’s 120 pills per month. So the cost of just a one-month supply of 120 pills at the average wholesale price is $10,617. That’s right, over $10,000 per month! If you must get Xtandi and you don’t have insurance which covers it, what are you to do?
First, if you have no insurance or poor insurance and a household income of $100,000 or less, you can apply to get Xtandi for free through Astellas, which may also offer other financial support.
If that doesn’t work for you, another less expensive option (short of travelling to another country) would be to order Xtandi from a verified international online pharmacy, which will send the medication to you from a licensed pharmacy in another country, such as Canada. Currently, several PharmacyChecker.com-verified online pharmacies sell Xtandi for about $41 per 40 mg capsule – about half the cost in the U.S. If you prefer to get your medication from a U.S. pharmacy, many pharmacies offer or accept discount cards which can bring the cost down a little, but only to about $75 per capsule.
It is ridiculous that American taxpayers helped develop this drug but are charged the most to get it. Hopefully, things will change.
Tagged with: Astellas, Cancer medication, Drug Prices, government, Online Pharmacies, prostate cancer, Xtandi
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Jun 5, 2015 | Drug Prices, Generic drugs, Online Pharmacies
The media rage these days when it comes to prescription drug prices is three-fold: 1) generic drug price spikes of literally thousands of percent, 2) specialty medications that cost $1.000/pill, and 3) cancer treatment costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year! We’re glad the media is loudly covering the public health crisis of high drug prices, but its focus of late seems to take the heat off of never ending brand name drug price increases and the pharmaceutical companies that charge those prices. We haven’t forgotten. For us the heat is on: including a loud reminder that these brand drugs are sold much more affordably outside the U.S., and can be found and safely purchased online.
To help us, I looked to the research of David Belk, MD. Dr. Belk, who is concerned with, and voraciously researches the insanity of healthcare costs, publishes a website called True Cost of Healthcare. His research shows that brand name drug prices increased by 13 times the rate of inflation over the past two and a half years. These are medications for which there is no available generic in the U.S. He looked at 335 drugs, their wholesale prices and tracked their increases from the October 2012 to the beginning of 2015. Only one drug, Norvir, actually came down in price. Dr. Belk writes: “All other brand name prescription drugs on my list went up a minimum of 9% and an average of just over 40% in price in only 2 1/2 years.”
While these brand drugs aren’t $1,000 per pill like Sovaldi, many Americans really can’t afford them. Below are two examples of brand name drugs that if purchased outside the U.S., would potentially save an American $4,000 a year and/or prevent that American from going without a prescribed, essential medicine for Diabetes or Asthma.
Januvia 100mg (siptagliptin), a drug that treats type-2 diabetes could cost you $1,149 for a three month supply at a local U.S. pharmacy. With a prescription discount coupon, you might get it for $963. If that’s too much, then brand name Januvia, marketed by MSD (a subsidiary of Merck), can be purchased online for $103.50 from an international online pharmacy– a percentage savings of 91% and a cost savings exceeding $1,000 over 3 months. Over a year, the cost savings is about $4,000.
Another example is Advair Diskus (fluticasone propionate/salmeterol), a popular asthma medication that is out of reach for many Americans due to cost. A three month supply of the 250/50mcg inhaler can run you $1,050 in a local U.S. pharmacy. With a discount card the price might be reduced to $874. At a verified international online pharmacy, the drug called Seretide Accuhaler, the name brand used by GlaxoSmithKline to market fluticasone propionate/salmeterol in several countries, is only $105: another three-month savings of $1,000 and annual savings of $4,000.
This summer at PharmacyChecker.com we’re going to keep the heat on the pharmaceutical industry with lots of examples of the crazy costs of normal brand name drugs in the U.S., and cooling things down for consumers with lots of savings you can find online.
Tagged with: Advair Diskus, Cancer medication, Dr. David Belk, generic drug prices, Januvia, Merck, Seretide Accuhaler, Sovaldi, speciality medications
by PharmacyChecker.com | Sep 27, 2013 | Drug Importation, Drug Prices, Online Pharmacies
Tarceva 150 mg packaging
A weekly series identifying prescription drugs manufactured in America and their prices.
Tarceva (erlotinib) is a drug used for treatment of certain types of non-small cell lung cancer as well as pancreatic cancer. Cancer medications are known for their excessively high prices, leading to outcries among doctors within the past few years. A product of drug company Roche, Tarceva is manufactured in the U.S.A. and available at much lower prices from verified international online pharmacies than here at home. At a New York City Rite-Aid, it costs $6,531 for 30 pills (100 mg). From a PharmacyChecker.com approved international pharmacy, it’s only $1,949. That’s a $4,582 savings, or 70%.
Check back next week for the savings on another American drug available abroad.
Tagged with: American Made Prescriptions Are Cheaper Abroad, Cancer medication, Tarceva
