New Pfizer discount keeps brand-name Lipitor cheap
By LINDA A. JOHNSON, AP Business Writer | |
Associated Press |
They'll be able to get Lipitor, the highest-selling prescription medicine in history, for
Patients who get a discount card at www.lipitor.com can receive a month's supply for
The program is
Lipitor Choice cards are accepted at about 98 percent of U.S. pharmacies, according to Pfizer, which is running the program until the end of 2015.
"We are very keen to see how patients and physicians respond,"
Sales normally would have been nearly wiped out within a couple years. But Pfizer, the world's second-biggest drugmaker, tried a unique strategy to retain many of the roughly 3.5 million Americans then taking the white oval tablets. Its Lipitor For You program offered discount cards letting patients get a month's supply for
Between that program and Lipitor's popularity in poorer countries where counterfeit drugs are so prevalent, it still generated
Prescription drug coupons have been widely available for years, but only for newer, generally pricey, brand-name drugs with no generic competition.
Pfizer's industry-first Lipitor For You offer didn't sit well with insurers, because patients who normally would have switched to a cheaper generic didn't, forcing health plans to cover much of the cost of more-expensive Lipitor. A couple other drugmakers followed Pfizer's lead when their top sellers got generic competition, so U.S. insurers made it harder for patients to use such discount cards, even excluding those brand-name drugs from coverage.
Even at
By comparison, generic Lipitor, called atorvastatin, sells for about
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