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This is something of interest to most of you.
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.
(A) BRAND NAME OF DRUG
(B) CONSUMER PRICE 100 TABS
(C) COST OF GENERAL ACTIVE INGREDIENTS
(D) PERCENT MARKUP
_________(A)_________(B)_______ (C)_________(D)
Celebrex 100 mg____$130.27____ $0.60_____ 21,712%
Claritin 10 mg_____$215.17____ $0.71_____ 30,306%
Keflex 250 mg______$157.39___ $1.88_____ 8,372%
Lipitor 20 mg $272.37 $5.80 4,696%
Norvasc 10 mg $188.29 $0.14 134,493%
Paxil 20 mg $220.27 $7.60 2,898%
Prevacid 30 mg $44.77 $1.01 34,136%
Prilosec 20 mg $360.97 $0.52 69,417%
Prozac 20 mg $247.47 $0.11 224,973%
Tenormin 50 mg $104.47 $0.13 80,362%
Vasotec 10 mg $102.37 $0.20 51,185%
Xanax 1mg $136.79 $0.024 569,958%
Zestril 20 mg $89.89 $3.20 2,809%
Zithromax 600mg $1,482.19 $18.78 7,892%
Zocor 40mg $350.27 $8.63 4,059%
Zoloft 50mg $206.87 $1.75 11,821%
***** 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 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 gotten 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 email, and send it to everyone you know with an
email address
