My most recent complaint about the Pharma Companies

[MoseyWalker]

I have been taking a med to control blood pressure for years and years and years. It is a beta blocker. It works great, and has always been cheap. It also controls my tremors (for the most part, though not as well as before). It also keeps the migraines away completely.I mean this med is cheap - really cheap - $10 a month on average - full price.

I went to get a refill on a slightly higher dosage that last month cost around $35. I was getting ready to pay the pharmacist helper until she said the price for a one month supply this month.

$106.39

That's right. $106.39

I told her I was going to have to think about whether I wanted to pay that much, and that it had never cost anywhere near that much before. She checked and said that the price was correct. This is a pharmacy I have been going to for 7 years.

I called my doc at the clinic. There is a pharmacy there which had a medication in the same class that I could get for $18.82 for a THREE month supply. I'm hoping it works like the previous one did.

What the hell?

[onecent]

1. My husband just got a letter from BCBS and they say they

will not pay for Norvasc OR Lipitor starting October 1st.

He has to make an appointment, see the doctor, to find out what he can replace this with...I guess that's what he is expected to do. He's been taking both for well OVER 7 years.

And we have had Blue Cross Blue Shield (30 years for me) and 13 years for him. They just do what they want anymore!

[Avalux]

2. Hard to say without the drug name -

I doubt the pharmacy itself arbitrarily raised the price. I will say this - if you've been prescribed another blood pressure med in the same class, it should work the same way. Hopefully just as well.

[iamtechus]

3. The price of Lipitor will soon be coming down!!

Court Invalidates a Patent That Pfizer Holds for Lipitor

By BLOOMBERG NEWS
Published: August 3, 2006

Pfizer may face generic competition to its top-selling drug Lipitor a year
earlier than analysts expected after a federal appeals court invalidated one
of the company’s patents.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/business/03drug.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin