It has to be that people simply don’t read the news. Or perhaps they think no one will notice when they do something completely outlandish…like this story. Taking a cue from others who have done the same thing and landed themselves on the front page of the mainstream media, an Irish drugmaker has jacked up the price of a painkiller that once cost a mere $138 (which is still astonomical to some) to almost $3,000 a bottle. That makes it 22 times more expensive than when the company acquired it in late 2013.
And the worst part?
The two main ingredients for the painkiller can be purchased separately for $36.
Horizon said the drug, Vimovo, “is a special formulation” and isn’t the same as simply combining naproxen and esomeprazole (the two main ingredients). And a Horizon spokesman said that currently there are no FDA-approved generic, over-the-counter or clinically “equivalent” medicines to Vimovo. (So, basically, they know they have people over a rock and a hard place and they are going to squeeze them for everything they can.)
“A spokesman for Dublin-based Horizon said that the $2,979 wholesale price does not reflect “the cost to patients or the cost to the system.” The company said it has programs to ensure that commercially-insured patients have access “at an affordable price” — even if the patient’s insurance refuses to cover the cost. Horizon estimates that 98% of all insured Vimovo patients pay $10 or less out of pocket.”1
But that’s hardly the point, is it? Someone is going to pay for that and it is likely the American health system. It’s issues like this that continue to make it a more and more broken system that only passes its brokenness along to us.
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In November, Horizon warned its investors that the higher cost of Vimovo to drugs with generic or branded forms of their active ingredients might see physicians, patients and healthcare payers less willing to purchase, but they pressed on.
And the huge price increase caused at least two large pharmacy benefit managers, which negotiate with drug makers on behalf of employers and health insurers, to back away. In response, Horizon entered into rebate agreements which allowed the cost to be lowered. But Vimovo is still on the non-preferred list (it will be covered but it’s no preferred).
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But will all these back alley deals, who is cashing in (cuz you know someone is)?
According to Annabel Samimy, an analyst at Stifel Financial,
“There is no transparency. It’s a big black box. What you see between the gross price and net price is a big bubble — and we don’t know where the savings are passed on to.
You need to understand who’s in the middle between the manufacturers and the patient. The system in the U.S. has created warped pricing. Everyone points fingers at each other and nothing gets fixed.”2
Let’s hope President Trump keeps his vow he made during his State of the Union address to fix the “injustice of high drug prices.”
(If you do use Vimovo, use caution.)
