I’m suffering from a severe case of cognitive dissonance, brought on by completely conflicting statements in articles from a single source, the New York Times. In Friday’s business section, Alex Berenson notes that big pharma, led by Pfizer, Lilly, Novartis and Wyeth all enjoyed strong profit gains (free registration required) in the third quarter.
The profits were generated, in large part, by price increases in the US, where Lilly’s prices were up 11%, contributing to a 14% gain in US revenues. Fair enough, prices went up, so did profits.
In the next (virtual) breath, another NYT article quotes the Congressional Budget Office’s as concluding that a Democratic Congress’ efforts to reduce Medicare drug spending by negotiating directly with pharmaceutical manufacturers will not work because private industry is so darn good at negotiating prices. (polemics are mine, but you get the point)

Continue reading Drug-induced dissonance

If this continues, big box and discount retailers will be giving drugs away. With the recent announcements that Target is matching Wal-Mart’s $4 drug price deal, Wal-Mart is speeding up the roll-out of their $4 script program, and K-Mart has had a 90 day supply of 184 generics for $15 offer since May, the price war has started.
Among the criticisms of the Wal-Mart initiative is that only one of the 20 drugs most commonly prescribed is on the discount list. Regardless, the Wal-Mart move has shaken up the pharma market, and forced retail outlets to quickly figure out their stance.

Continue reading Big sale on drugs!

If you’re still wondering why drug costs are going up so far so fast, here’s another reason. Direct to consumer advertising costs. Big pharma increased their spending on advertising by 9% in the first half of 2006.
Expect total spending on DTC advertising to hit $5 billion this year.
No wonder prices have jumped this year.

AWP has long stood for “ain’t what’s paid”, and the old saw has been validated by documents made public during litigation in Boston earlier this year. First DataBank, one of the publishers of Average Wholesale Price data, had been sued by several plaintiffs alleging that First DataBank’s benchmarking process was seriously flawed.

Continue reading What’s happening with AWP?

As a drugstore.com customer, I received an email (along with a few hundred thousand other folks) from the company’s CEO last week. The email was their response to the recent announcement by Wal Mart that they were cutting prices to below $4 for a month’s supply of almost three hundred generic drugs.
The net is the folks at drugstore.com claim to provide prices that are already lower than Wal Mart’s for the equivalent supply.

Continue reading Drugstore.com’s consumerism efforts

Part D’s implications will be many, far-reaching, and complex. Why? the sheer size of the market…One-twelfth of all scripts dispensed in retail pharmacies were for Part D recipients.
Here’s a snapshot of the crystal ball.

Continue reading Part D – where next?