Drug Companies Interesting!

[Dabell]

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 data below speaks for itself.


Celebrex: 100 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $130.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.60
Percent markup: 21,712%


Claritin: 10 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71
Percent markup: 30,306%


Keflex: 250 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $157.39
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.88
Percent markup: 8,372%




Lipitor: 20 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $272.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $5.80
Percent markup: 4,696%


Norvasc: 10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $188.29
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.14
Percent markup: 134,493%


Paxil: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $220.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $7.60
Percent markup: 2,898%


Prevacid: 30 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $44.77
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.01
Percent markup: 34,136%




Prilosec: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $360.97
Cost of general active ingredients $0.52
Percent markup: 69,417%


Prozac: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $247.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.11
Percent markup: 224,973%


Tenormin: 50 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $104.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.13
Percent markup: 80,362%




Vasotec: 10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $102.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.20
Percent markup: 51,185%


Xanax: 1 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $136.79
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.024
Percent markup: 569,958%


Zestril: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) $89.89
Cost of general active ingredients $3.20
Percent markup: 2,809


Zithromax: 600 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $1,482.19
Cost of general active ingredients: $18.78
Percent markup: 7,892%


Zocor: 40 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $350.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $8.63
Percent markup: 4,059%



Zoloft: 50 mg
Consumer price: $206.87
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.75
Percent markup: 11,821%






Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought
everyone 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 Walgreen's 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. (this is
true)


I went there this past Thursday and asked them. I am asking each of you
to please help me by copying this letter, and passing it into your
own e-mail, and send it to everyone you know with an e-mail address.

 

[Smiling JOe]

Yes, the drug companies are in business to be profitable. They pay their reps very well, and they are the ones who push the drugs on the Doctors, who in turn, push them on the consumer. Much of the cost of your drugs are in R&D (research and development) and marketing. For example, Pfizer spends a few billion dollars on R&D every year. Without the R&D, they would not come up with new meds. Somewhere there are statistics, which I do not have in front of me, which show very few drugs actually ever make it to market. These companies spend millions of dollars trying to create new drugs, hoping for a few good meds. The price of your meds pays for all of the ones that never make it to market.

On a similar note, most products have as much, or more, money spent on packaging as the actual product. Throw advertising on top of that, and you have an incredible mark-up, if you consider only the price of the ingredients. How much money is spent on marketing and packaging all of that make-up which you push. I bet that those two items cost much more than the raw ingredients of the make-up.

If you are going to open people's eyes to mark-up in our capitalistic society, I encourage you to open people's eyes 360 degrees, not 1 degree.

 

[bsmart]

I would like to see the mark-up for a medication that I take called Levatrol--heart medication.

 

[Bob]

I agree with SJ, but they need to stop the Tv/magazine ads. It's as wasteful as the oil company spots saying they're working on solutions for the energy situation.

 

[bsmart]

I agree with SJ, but they need to stop the Tv/magazine ads. It's as wasteful as the oil company spots saying they're working on solutions for the energy situation.

Excellent analogy Bob.

 

[Smiling JOe]

I read you loud and clear, but without the ads, they would not have the high number of sales, thereby reducing profits, which eventually leads to reduction of money spent on R&D, which may eventually extend the lives of people.

The real problem is: What will be the cost of a miracle pill? They will lose money by creating cures, so they continue to treat symptoms, keeping the money rolling in.

I could write a book regarding my opinions of the benefits and detriments of finding cures, but I will save that for another day.

 

[Cil]

I always wonder how much advertising really works.
I assume it would not be used if it didn't work.
But man I just hate it. I have never bought anything advertised on TV since I was a little kid and bought a Beanie Copter that broke the same day.
I do my best to NOT participate in that part of the capitalism game. Marketing is another story.
I can be a sucker for shrewd marketing.

On another note:
Watch out for Celebrex.
Celebrex almost killed my dog. (For dogs, it is marketed as Derramex. It is the same thing.)

 

[Beachlover2]

Sometimes I think we have too many pills when I see my father-in-law just barely living for the last four years - but still hanging in. Medical Science is having us live longer - but is the quality there? But then again I have a friend whose 9 year old daughter is dying of brain cancer and I pray for a cure for her.

 

[Miss Kitty]

PawPaw has had CML (a form of Leukemia) for 2 1/2 years. We were lucky...it was treatable. He takes a drug called Gleevec which is not covered by Medicare nor his secondary ins. He spends $2500.00 a month on this one drug, because he did not qualify for any assistance. The cost has not come down a bit in all this time. Talk about a Catch-22!

 

[shakennotstirred]

The cost of prescriptions can be very devasting to older people. My mom works at a pharmacy & she said people break down in tears when they see the amount they owe. She has had some customers max out their credit cards & others refuse some of the prescriptions because they cannot afford the cost. They literally go through the order & take only the ones they can afford to pay for. It's so sad.