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The Consumer Price per 100
brand name "Xanax 1mg"
is $136.79.
The cost of the general active ingredients per 100 tab/cap is- $0.024.
The percentage of markup is 569,958%.
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Actual Cost Of Making These Popular
Prescription Drugs
Posted November 8, 2003 thepeoplesvoice.org
From Dr. Betty Martini / Bettym19@mindspring.com
From JUDICIAL REFORM INVESTIGATIONS / justice@court.to
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 chart below speaks for itself.
| BRAND
NAME |
CONSUMER
PRICE 100 |
COST OF GENERAL
ACTIVE INGREDIENTS
per 100 tab/cap |
PERCENT MARKUP
|
|
Celebrex 100 mg
Claritin 10 mg
Keflex 250 mg
Lipitor 20 mg
Norvasc 10 mg
Paxil 20 mg
Prevacid 30 mg
Prilosec 20 mg
Prozac 20 mg
Tenormin 50 mg
Vasotec 10 mg
Xanax 1mg
Zestril 20 mg
Zithromax 600mg
Zocor 40mg
Zoloft 50mg
|
$130.27
$215.17
$157.39
$272.37
$188.29
$220.27
$44.77
$360.97
$247.47
$104.47
$102.37
$136.79
$89.89
$1,482.19
$350.27
$206.87
|
$0.60
$0.71
$1.88
$5.80
$0.14
$7.60
$1.01
$0.52
$0.11
$0.13
$0.20
$0.024
$3.20
$18.78
$8.63
$1.75 |
21,712%
30,306%
8,372%
4,696%
134,493%
2,898%
34,136%
69,417%
224,973%
80,362%
51,185%
569,958%
2,809%
7,892%
4,059%
11,821%
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- Since the cost of prescription drugs is so
outrageous, I thought everyone I knew 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 Walgreens 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 60pills 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.
-###-
I am asking each of you to please help me
by copying this letter, and pasting it into your own e-mail, and send it to
everyone you know with an e-mail address. Judicial Reform Investigations - www.court.to
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