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Forwarded by a friend.. long intresting read...

MAKE SURE YOU READ TO THE END OF THIS...COSTCO SHOULD BE APPLAUDED FOR THIS........

Let's hear it for Costco!! Make sure you read all the way past the list of the drugs. Note the title on the below email signature block.

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 pric! e (100 t ablets): $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 !
Cons umer 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).

"Cost of general active ingredients" is hardly the full extent of the COGS.

Yes, the research is why they are so expensive... I won't get into overhead and all of the other type of costs.

All generics arent the same either, the really cheap ones may not be as good of quality as the higher priced generics.

Just call Canada

All the blurbs about 'cost of research". "cost of marketing", "other ingredients", is just a bunch of hype originated by the drug manufacturers (pharma corps). The profits are outrageous and they gouge us intentionally because in most cases, you cannot live without the necesary drug at the time. (includes the rare cases of drugs that actually cure something, such as antibiotics)

The majority of research costs are OUR tax dollars via govt grants to universities and via "special FDA projects". One of the best kept secrets today is just how much money the drug corps actualy spend on research & development (their own money). Most of the pharma corps expenses are marketing costs and lobbiests expenses.

Another real problem as a result of this mess is insurance companies invest in pharma stock, as do banks and other money market investments. The result: those that control the money don't want to see profits reduced and we all end up bearing the burden.

TonyT, also dont forget that these drugs get sold to warehosues, then on to pharmacies/hospitals.

The biggest hikes seem to be at the pharmacies on average, but that isnt the cvase for each drug.

While they are hiked up, it does cost the companies more than the cost of ingredients to put it together, plus then the pharmacies buy pill bottes and have people putting it into portions.

But ya the prices could still make companies money at 50% less.

YARDofSTUF wrote:All generics arent the same either, the really cheap ones may not be as good of quality as the higher priced generics.

They all have to meet FDA guidelines.

Health professionals and consumers can be assured that FDA approved generic drugs have met the same rigid standards as the innovator drug. To gain FDA approval, a generic drug must:
contain the same active ingredients as the innovator drug(inactive ingredients may vary)
be identical in strength, dosage form, and route of administration
have the same use indications
be bioequivalent
meet the same batch requirements for identity, strength, purity, and quality
be manufactured under the same strict standards of FDA's good manufacturing practice regulations required for innovator products

http://www.fda.gov/cder/ogd/

Here's another set of numbers, right off my Medicare Part D statement:

Hydrochlorothiazide $3.73. The margin, by law is 17%, or 60 cents. For that the pharmacy has to provide a label, a bottle, count the pills, report the transaction to the Part D provider, and pay the credit card fee.

Another prescription - Ciprofloxacin, $7.35. Margin is $1.25

For the month, four prescriptions, $261, or $44.37 gross margin.

For sure, the pharmacies aren't getting rich. That's why you are lucky if your pharmacist paid attention in his English as a Second Language class.

blebs99 wrote:They all have to meet FDA guidelines.

Generics have more leway(sp)

John wrote:"Cost of general active ingredients" is hardly the full extent of the COGS.

Very misleading email.

YARDofSTUF wrote:Generics have more leway(sp)

really???

Just to add that my statements above don't appply to all drugs, just most of them. For example, some medications have to be sterile, as for injections and such, and these cost a lot more to manufacture.

YARDofSTUF wrote:Generics have more leway(sp)

Either way, give me the $4 wal-mart generics any day.

the most profitable branch.
but only 1 active substance from initial 15,000 items
reach the market
usually after 16y pre-market research
from 25y period covered by patent

FYI all 1, 2, 3 lab stages only to spent the money (16y !)
after lunch there are less then 10y without generics
but only a few are the most profitable stars (marketing)

BTW all generics have only very limited documentation
and cannot be registred without principal item on the market.

blebs99 wrote:They all have to meet FDA guidelines.

Health professionals and consumers can be assured that FDA approved generic drugs have met the same rigid standards as the innovator drug. To gain FDA approval, a generic drug must:
contain the same active ingredients as the innovator drug(inactive ingredients may vary)
be identical in strength, dosage form, and route of administration
have the same use indications
be bioequivalent
meet the same batch requirements for identity, strength, purity, and quality
be manufactured under the same strict standards of FDA's good manufacturing practice regulations required for innovator products

http://www.fda.gov/cder/ogd/

Our SG chem geek explained this before the non active ingridients are the difference and can affect the drug.

TonyT wrote:All the blurbs about 'cost of research". "cost of marketing", "other ingredients", is just a bunch of hype originated by the drug manufacturers (pharma corps)..

Yea maybe they're overpriced, but the cost of research isn't BS. My wife is a Ph.D student and paying a lab full of 10-20 people, 20k each (this is at a school, try at an organization at 50k+ each and hundreds of people instead), paying for the uber expensive equipment and its maintenance, etc. is not cheap. Research is VERY expensive.

Amro wrote:Yea maybe they're overpriced, but the cost of research isn't BS. My wife is a Ph.D student and paying a lab full of 10-20 people, 20k each (this is at a school, try at an organization at 50k+ each and hundreds of people instead), paying for the uber expensive equipment and its maintenance, etc. is not cheap. Research is VERY expensive.

Agreed, it is not cheap, but the majority of is is paid for by OUR tax dollars, to the tune of 4+ billion/year!

YARDofSTUF wrote:Our SG chem geek explained this before the non active ingridients are the difference and can affect the drug.

Non-active ingredients are somewhat of a misnomer since they are adjuncts to the primary chemical.

TonyT wrote:Agreed, it is not cheap, but the majority of is is paid for by OUR tax dollars, to the tune of 4+ billion/year!

That's true, but so are things like 500k for random ass society of crap that no one cares about meetings and blah blah blah for all kinds of private organizations. Although 4B is crap ton of money, I'd rather it went into that to get rid of disease than to random groups. I'm sure pharmaceutical brunt a large portion of the research bill as well, right? I mean it can't possibly be that we foot all of the research and they reap the profits..?

Amro wrote:That's true, but so are things like 500k for random ass society of crap that no one cares about meetings and blah blah blah for all kinds of private organizations. Although 4B is crap ton of money, I'd rather it went into that to get rid of disease than to random groups. I'm sure pharmaceutical brunt a large portion of the research bill as well, right? I mean it can't possibly be that we foot all of the research and they reap the profits..?

Look at the oil companies.

YARDofSTUF wrote:Our SG chem geek explained this before the non active ingridients are the difference and can affect the drug.

Hey all I know is that I take generic Warfarin in place of brand name Coumadin, to keep blood from clotting on my mechanical aortic valve, and there isn't a bit of difference in my INR blood tests. Warfarin is roughly half the cost of brand name.

generics are not a problem
even can improve not only the market
but also brand name

actually the main problems are:
1. lack of trustworthy distributions
(last years a few, the biggest, build own)
2. increased, huge - with false tally
(Middle East, Far East but also local origin)

I would disagree with statements that the money for this research is federal in nature. You count only grants in and towards development of a specific drug. These companies spend hundreds of millions of their own money on PhDs including Biochemists and Organic Chemists who develop the synthesis pathways for these complex drugs. It's not just the step of finding the molecule that does x or y, it's finding a way to produce that molecule. It's not high school chemisty with two beakers and a jug of reagent here folks, this is extremely high end stuff. RnD in the pharmaceutical world is immensely expensive, and pulls from multiple disciplines, the money TonyT is refering to comes in the form of grants leading to Drug Trials, FDA Approval and initial targetting of the drug being created. We can be quick to judge them, however markups are not as bad as that makes it appear. When you do the math the markups are excessively high, but not as outrageous as this article says.

the most recent examples
Web's 'drug kingpin' gets 30 years http://www.startribune.com/crime/story/1337623.html Last update: August 02, 2007 – 2:37 AM
U.S. says 18 charged in illegal online pharmacy case http://www.reuters.com/article/technolo ... 4820070803 Fri Aug 3, 2007 9:17AM EDT

Heart attack risks of cheap drugs
Researchers claimed yesterday that the government's drive to switch patients
to cheaper cholesterol-lowering drugs, from a branded statin,
could put them at greater risk of heart attacks and stroke.
More than 83 per cent of drugs prescribed in Britain are generic medications,
the highest rate in Europe
06/09/2007 Daily Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... art106.xml link
OTOH
...Drugs most commonly counterfeited
It is illegal to buy or sell prescription drugs without a consultation with a qualified doctor
* VIAGRA, made by Pfizer, for impotence.
* LIPITOR, made by Pfizer, for high cholesterol.
* REDUCTIL, Made by Knoll, for weight loss.
* CIALIS, made by Eli Lilley, for impotence.
* PROZAC, made by Eli Lilley, for depression.
* VALIUM, made by Roche, for anxiety...
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health ... 119070.ece link
The Independent 2 January 2007

BTW Cost of Drugs
...Already, the average cost of shepherding
a potential drug from discovery through approval is $980 million,
up from $802 million in 2000, and the process takes 14.2 years on average...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/ ... 8776.shtml link
FDA Is Rejecting More New Drugs TRENTON, N.J., Aug. 17, 2007

My brother works in a hospital. As a maintenance dude, he sets up conference rooms for drug companies to come in and sell their brand of this or that. They bring in catered food 3 days a week, have drawings for folks attending to spend a week or so at this or that resort. Alot of the doctors are sent on trips to view this or that on a lots of high price drugs that are really not needed.

My mom is taking a drug that costs $100 a pill for her heart meds. She found out there is a generic of the same drug that sells for $8 bucks a pop.

A lot of this is a scam IMHO. It pays to get a 2nd opinion.

the path to FDA approval for a drug (research, testing, evaluation, etc.) is typically BILLIONS of dollars and takes anywhere from 5-15 years. The number of drugs that are approved by the FDA and are released into the mainstream is dwarfed by the number that are rejected - thus the markup of approved, saleable drugs.
Don't get m wrong, I believe that the pharmacological industry in general is about as corrupt as it gets, and they truly do run medicine, insurance and general healthcare here in our country, but the OP is a gross (and IMO incorrect) oversimplification of the general problem.

Far-N-Wide wrote:My brother works in a hospital. As a maintenance dude, he sets up conference rooms for drug companies to come in and sell their brand of this or that. They bring in catered food 3 days a week, have drawings for folks attending to spend a week or so at this or that resort. Alot of the doctors are sent on trips to view this or that on a lots of high price drugs that are really not needed.

My mom is taking a drug that costs $100 a pill for her heart meds. She found out there is a generic of the same drug that sells for $8 bucks a pop.

A lot of this is a scam IMHO. It pays to get a 2nd opinion.

And your "brother" the maintence guy came up with all these great business ideas of what is, and not is needed on his own???? He should keep changing light bulbs.

JC wrote:And your "brother" the maintence guy came up with all these great business ideas of what is, and not is needed on his own???? He should keep changing light bulbs.

Christ dude, he was saying his brother has witnessed how the PH industry wines and dines the people that would be prescribing the drugs. Not that his brother had ANYTHING to do with the cause, effect or reason the drug companies do what they do. Take a valium or something, ffs.

Glad I dont pay a penny for prescription drugs.

EU probes drugmakers
The Associated Press January 16, 2008, 11:15AM ET text size: TT
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financia ... 72SI82.htm
Pfizer Inc., AstraZeneca PLC, Sanofi-Aventis SA and GlaxoSmithKline PLC
but
Merck & Co., Roche Holding AG, Bayer, Schering Pharma AG,
Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH and Stada Arzneimittel AG
were not under investigation.

The FDA uses a broad defenition for bioequivalent.

My wife takes avonex for her MS. It has continued to climb in price over the last few months. Up to almost $1700 a month for 4 prefilled shots. If it weren't for insurance, there would be no way we could afford it.

OSULLY wrote:The FDA uses a broad defenition for bioequivalent.

Its European counterpart has its own interesting views on that as well. (From a food additive perspective.)

brembo wrote:Christ dude, he was saying his brother has witnessed how the PH industry wines and dines the people that would be prescribing the drugs. Not that his brother had ANYTHING to do with the cause, effect or reason the drug companies do what they do. Take a valium or something, ffs.

As an aside, the majority of continuing education programs and courses for health care professionals are subsidized in some way by a manufacturer.

This is my issue on the matter, from a few days ago. This is not just selective as I firmly believe this to be the case across MANY drugs out on the market. They do not care about us, they want customers, not people who can actually be healed by these drugs and others. I mean 100-120k people die each year directly from taking prescription drugs and people seem fine with it. Yet a fraction of that amount die each year from ALL illicit drug use combined direct & indirect, and yet they sit here (MSM and the others) trying to convince people that illegal drugs are the problem, well not trying because the vast majority believes it without even researching or studying the chemical composition of the NATURAL plants, history, culture and family species in which the illegal drugs are derived from, plants are not drugs, men make drugs not nature. I mean, nature being against the law? I mean doesn't having certain drugs like Redux, Duract, Seldane, Raxar, and many many more being removed from the market after millions upon millions of people have already taken them because of their extreme dangers (Death causing abilities). Yet nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care, all while the MSM does its smoke and mirrors about making sure everyone knows about the dangers of illegal drugs and the WAR on them, yet you don't hear a word about massive prescription drug deaths that occur every year on the MSM. Also I know some people will say if illegal drugs were legalized there would be more deaths and astronomical addiction. Hogwash, go ask your friends if they would start doing the illegal drugs if they all became legal. So far from everyone I have asked the major general consensus is none of them would. Why, because if you weren't doing it before you most likely would not do it later. Given there would be a slight increase across the board but nowhere near the Pharm side of things. I am not advocating illegal drug use, what I am advocating is self-education and self-research. It is politics, economics, control, and making $$ while your at it.

[CENTER]Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy
[/CENTER]

Erick H. Turner, M.D., Annette M. Matthews, M.D., Eftihia Linardatos, B.S., Robert A. Tell, L.C.S.W., and Robert Rosenthal, Ph.D.

Background Evidence-based medicine is valuable to the extentthat the evidence base is complete and unbiased. Selective publication of clinical trials — and the outcomes within those trials — can lead to unrealistic estimates of drug effectiveness and alter the apparent risk–benefit ratio.Methods We obtained reviews from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for studies of 12 antidepressant agents involving 12,564 patients. We conducted a systematic literature search to identify matching publications. For trials that were reported in the literature, we compared the published outcomes with the FDA outcomes. We also compared the effect size derived from the published reports with the effect size derived from the entire FDA data set. Results Among 74 FDA-registered studies, 31%, accounting for 3449 study participants, were not published. Whether and how the studies were published were associated with the study outcome. A total of 37 studies viewed by the FDA as having positive results were published; 1 study viewed as positive was not published. Studies viewed by the FDA as having negative or questionable results were, with 3 exceptions, either not published (22 studies) or published in a way that, in our opinion, conveyed a positive outcome (11 studies). According to the published literature, it appeared that 94% of the trials conducted were positive. By contrast, the FDA analysis showed that 51% were positive. Separate meta-analyses of the FDA and journal data sets showed that the increase in effect size ranged from 11 to 69% for individual drugs and was 32% overall. Conclusions We cannot determine whether the bias observed resulted from a failure to submit manuscripts on the part of authors and sponsors, from decisions by journal editors and reviewers not to publish, or both. Selective reporting of clinical trial results may have adverse consequences for researchers, study participants, health care professionals, and patients.

New England Journal of Medicine: SSRI's Don't Really Work

It’s official: the world has been fundamentally misled about the benefits and harms of extremely popular anti-depressant drugs, including Prozac, Zoloft and Aropax. A study in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine found roughly one third of all the scientific trials of these antidepressants were never published. Why? Because the trial results did not show the drugs in a favourable light. The study published this week examined data from the clinical trials of anti-depressants that drug companies had submitted to the United States Food and Drug Administration in recent decades. They found that of 74 scientific trials of the anti-depressant medicines, 31% of them were never published in the medical literature. Some of the trials had positive, favourable results and some had negative, unfavourable results. Almost all of the trials with positive results ended up being published in medical journals. Almost all of the trials with negative or questionable results were not published - or were published in a way that tried to portray the results in a positive light. What this means is that doctors, patients and the public all over the world have been grossly mislead about the true value of these widely prescribed medicines. This is of course the class of anti-depressants that has been enthusiastically championed for more than a decade by psychiatrists closely tied to the drug makers, and widespread prescription of the drugs has cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars. According to this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, if you look at what’s been published, 94% of the trials of these antidepressants that have been published were positive. But if you look at the real evidence, including the published and unpublished trials, as the authors of this week’s papers did, only 51% of the anti-depressant trials conducted were actually positive. It's not clear exactly how negative trials were buried -- drug companies may have suppressed them, authors may not have submitted them, or journals may have decided not to publish them. In recent years, concerns about buried trial data have led to the creation of new registers of all clinical trials, which the pharmaceutical industry is now actively involved in.

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/358/3/252

Frostybear,

Where do I begin....

"100K die per annum as a direct result of prescription drugs." Would you please elaborate?

Might I assume by your concern for natural illegal drugs, you are referring to cannabis? Yes, it should be decriminalized, perhaps even made legal, but do not think of it as safe. I have personally witnesses too many fine young minds eutrophied from chronic usage. Yes, the magic word, moderation.

People certainly do care whether or not the prescriptions they take will harm them. The corporations feel the same way, litigation has that effect. Consider also, even pharmaceutical CEOs get sick and die.

Psychiatrists who utilize SSRI's in their treatments understand that no one or any medication might be proper for a particular patient. Physicians should understand than no one drug works all the time, and many have side effects (especially those which are for extended treatment).

While many curse the corporate entities for their greed (deservedly so), the majority of present pharmaceutical agents either extend lives or make them more livable. I agree with TonyT (shock) that nutrition plays a vital role in the well being of a person, and with anyone suggesting self-advocacy.

<eyestrain> I will return to this later.

david

Of course the highly variable response to many drugs is one reason there are so many. It also makes it hard to interpret the studies and easy to manipulate them.Just adding confusion to the discussion

You should see the cost my my crap. And this is Costco prices. Much more at other places.

All one month supplies.
Entocort= 949.49
Asacol= 138.76
Protonix= 168.38
Total= 1255.08

Thank goodness for my prescription plan.