The price we pay for prescription drugs

Make sure you read all the way past the list of the drugs. The woman that signed below is a Budget Analyst out of federal Washington, DC offices.

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


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

Celebrex

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

Claritin



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

Keflex

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


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

Norvasc

Paxil:
20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $220.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $7.60
Percent markup: 2,8 98%

Paxil

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

Prevacid

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

Prilosec

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

Prozac

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

Tenormin

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

Vasotec

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

xnax

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

Zestri

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

Zithromax

Zocor:
40 mg
Consumer price (1 00 tablets): $350.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $8.63
Percent markup: 4,059%
15 zocor.jpg
Zoloft:
50 mg
Consumer price: $206.87
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.75
Percent markup: 11,821%
zoloft


Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought everyone should know about this.

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 report er for Channel 7 News in Detroit , did a story on generic drug prices gouging by pharmacies. He found in his investigation that some of these generic drugs were marked up as much as 3,000% or more. 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 wou ld 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.