The Shocking Truth About Drug Prices

A friend sent me this and asked me to pass it on to others so.....here goes....

I am not sure of the studies done in this article but I thought it was an intresting read......I take a drug called Imatrix and it is very expensive.....wonder what it cost the drug company to make it....hummmmm.....wonder what it cost to make yours and how much we are all being "ripped off".Wonder how we can find out for sure and if anything can be done about the skyrocketing cost of these drugs?

Excerpted from the web site located at www.stopFDA.com
http://www.stopFDA.com>
operated by Life Extension Foundation

WHAT DRUGS REALLY COST

Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company
for the active ingredient in prescription medications?
Some people think it must cost a lot, since many drugs
sell for more than $2.00 per tablet. We did a search
of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the
active ingredients found in drugs approved by the FDA.
As we have revealed in past issues of Life Extension,
a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United
States contain active ingredients made in other
countries.

In our independent investigation of how much profit
drug companies really make, we obtained the actual
price of active ingredients used in some of the most
popular drugs sold in America. The chart below speaks
for itself.

Retail Cost Increase
Cost of of Above
DRUG 100 TABS Ingredients Cost

Celebrex 100 mg $130.27 $0.60 21,712%

Claritin 10 mg $215.17 $0.71 30,306%

Keflex 250 mg $157.39 $1.88 8,372%

Lipitor 20 mg $272.37 $5.80 4,696%

Norvasc 10 mg $188.29 $0.14 134,493%

Paxil 20 mg $220.27 $7.60 2,898%

Prevacid 30 mg $44.77 $1.01 34,136%

Prilosec 20 mg $360.97 $0.52 69,417%

Prozac 20 mg $247.47 $0.11 224,973%

Tenormin 50 mg $104.47 $0.13 80,362%

Vasotec 10 mg $102.37 $0.20 51,185%

Xanax 1mg $136.79 $0.024 569,958%

Zestril 20 mg $89.89 $3.20 2,809%

Zithromax 600mg $1,482.19 $18.78 7,892%

Zocor 40mg $350.27 $8.63 4,059%

Zoloft 50mg $206.87 $1.75 11,821%

*****

Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous,
I thought everyone I knew should know about this.
Please read the following and pass it on.

It pays to shop around. This helps to solve the
mystery as to why they can afford to put a Walgreens
on every corner..................

On Monday night, Steve Wilson, an investigative
reporter for channel 7 News in Detroit, did a story on
generic drug price gouging by pharmacies. He found in
his investigation, that some of these generic drugs
were marked up as much as 3,000% or more. Yes, that's
not a typo..... three thousand percent!

So often, we blame the drug companies for the high
cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so. But in this
case, the fault clearly lies with the pharmacies
themselves. For example, if you had to buy a
prescription drug, and bought the name brand, you
might pay $100 for 100 pills. The pharmacist might
tell you that if you get the generic equivalent, they
would only cost $80, making you think you are "saving"
$20. What the pharmacist is not telling you is that
those 100 generic pills may have only cost him $10!

At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr.
Wilson whether or not there were any pharmacies that
did not adhere to this practice, and he said that
Costco consistently charged little over their cost for
the generic drugs.

I went to the Costco site, where you can look up any
drug, and get its online price. It says that the
in-store prices are consistent with the online prices.
I was appalled. Just to give you one example from my
own experience, I had to use the drug, Compazine,
which helps prevent nausea in chemo patients. I used
the generic equivalent, which cost $54.99 for 60 pills
at CVS. I checked the price at Costco, and I! could
have bought 100 pills for $19.89. For 145 of my pain
pills, I paid $72.57. I could have got 150 at Costco
for $28.08.I would like to mention, that although
Costco is a "membership" type store, you do NOT have
to be a member to buy prescriptions there, as it is a
federally regulated substance. You just tell them at
the door that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they
will let you in.

Pete Valle
pvmv2526@earthlink.net
EarthLink: The #1 provider of the Real Internet.


What do you all think about this???
Dee

Amen. Thanks for putting the info together. Any more from me, and it would be political. Which I won't do.

There is legislation in our state (WI) trying to OK getting meds from Canada and also to do something about US costs.
Canadian meds are available on-line. Also for those of us that qualify as lower income, several of the drug companies have Patient Assistance programs-you need to find out the name of the company that puts out the drug, see if it is on the list and if you qualify for the financial stuff and have your doctor contact them; then the paperwork is sometimes done for every 3 months, 6 months-each seems to do it differently and some are more of a hassle to get done-my drs, pharmacist, and friend help with the paperwork. It also pays to shop around, there is certainly a cost difference between the pharmacies in town. ShopKo is the best in my area for many meds. Every hundreds of $$ helps. If I had to rely on drugstore meds only-would be more than my income. Also my docs are good with samples,esp. because I have to try many new ones. It is really worth looking into. The thing is, I used to help my patients do the same thing. The paperwork is really worth it.

Dee- I got this same email from my Father in Law. I take Celebrex and with my insurance I pay $50 per month. Normal price without insurance is $86. I have 3 other meds I take daily and checked them all at Costco (as I have a membership there) versus Eckerd Drug where I currently get all my meds and Eckerd was cheaper than Costco on all but one. Don't know if that means anything to anyone other than me. My advice is it pays to shop around for med prices. For me, when I get a new Rx from my Dr. I call around to all the local pharmacies,tell them what insurance I have and ask what my copay will be. Eckerd seems to be the cheapest. I started doing this a couple of years ago when my DH and I lost group health insurance when we started our own business and didn't qualify for group coverage.

This message was edited Nov 17, 2003 9:25 PM

Glad all have replyed and I am really intrested to know this information....didn't know that co-pays were diffrent at pharmacys...
Dee