Pill Splitting vs. Pill Popping

BrooklynDodger expects that Big Pharma will close this loophole pretty quick. The real story is that the pricing per pill rather than per milligram means that the cost of the actual physical drug is a minimal part of the price of the medicine. To this point it hasn't been worth Big Pharma's time to bargain with the pharmacy companies or the insurance providers over the medicine quantities. To the pharmacies, the cost of the product is really to cost of putting pills in bottles, not the weight of the pills.

This is a market with a monopoly seller [Big Pharma patentate], oligopolistic buyers [drug store chains or wholesalers], big third party payers [insurance companies], and non-paying prescribers. Physicians don't compete based on who prescribes the cheapest medicine.




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U-M pill-splitting plan could be big cost saver

January 14, 2006

BY KATIE MERX

FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

• Aceon, hypertension
  
• Atacand, hypertension
  
• Avapro, hypertension
  
• Benicar, hypertension
  
• Cardura, hypertension
  
• Celexa, depression
  
• Cozaar, hypertension
  
• Crestor, high cholesterol
  
• Diovan, hypertension
  
• Klonopin, panic disorder, epilepsy
  
• Lexapro, depression
  
• Lipitor, high cholesterol
  
• Mavik, hypertension
  
• Paxil, depression
  
• Pexeva, depression
  
• Pravachol, high cholesterol
  
• Valtrex, herpes
  
• Viagra, erectile dysfunction
  
• Zestril, heart failure, high blood pressure
  
• Zocor, high cholesterol
  
• Zoloft, depression
  
• Zyprexa, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder

• Retail costs for the drugs

  
  
• At www.walgreens.com, 30 tablets of Lipitor cost $115.99 whether a patient needs 20mg, 40mg or 80mg tablets.
  
• At www.drugstore.com, 30 tablets of Zocor cost $135.99 for 20mg and $129.99 for 40mg.
  
• At www.CVS.com, 30 tablets of Pravachol cost $102.99 in a 20mg dose and $147.99 in a 40mg dose.
  

The University of Michigan could save $1.3 million and its health-plan members could save $190,000 this year if 45% of eligible members join a new and controversial pill-splitting program.

U-M started its pill-splitting program Jan. 1 to save money with plans to share the savings with its health-plan members by lowering co-pays. The program is voluntary and, at this point, includes three drugs that the university says can be safely split: Lipitor, Pravachol and Zocor.

The savings come through a quirk in the drug-pricing system that makes many prescription tablets available at the same or nearly the same cost whether patients buy them in low doses or high doses. Thirty tablets of Lipitor, for example, cost $116 at Walgreen Co. whether a patient buys 20mg, 40mg or 80mg tablets.