Posted by King Vultan on July 13, 2004, at 16:44:21
In reply to Re: Experienced Parnate Users » chemist, posted by cubbybear on July 13, 2004, at 1:56:28
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> Just want to add as an afterthought, I'm only praying that this medication will always be available, there will be a sufficient number of doctors who are willing to prescribe it, and that the infamous GlaxoSmithKline does not do another price hike anywhere near what they did this year (40%).
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>I looked at the Walgreen's site, and it does appear that Parnate has gone up in price based on what I can recollect. Nardil is also relatively expensive. The cash price at the Walgreen's I go to for 6 x 30 = 180 pills of Nardil is $125 (their website indicates it should be about $115). Their site shows a similar quantity of Parnate costing about $158. In both cases, these are the maximum recommended doses of each drug (6 pills/day).
As for the ethics of this kind of pricing, in the defense of the drug companies, I have to believe that the volume is so small on each of these that they are entitled to charge a somewhat higher price than on their regular offerings. The truth is that the volume is so low that none of the generic companies even want to bother with these drugs because there just is no money in it. To me, though, a sudden 40% increase in the price of a product that has been manufactured for decades and is a lifesaver for many is an action that I would tend to view as excessively greedy and rather lacking in basic concern and regard for the customer.
Todd
poster:King Vultan
thread:364823
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040712/msgs/365740.html