Big Pharma always has their bottom line on their mind:
“If you’re noticing a theme with that list of drugs, you’re not alone. Rumor is, these particular drugs may have been picked as freebies because there are way cheaper (and equally effective) generics out there. The same type of situation holds true for drug samples from your doctor’s office – samples that are given out by pharmaceutical companies are often drugs that might cost you more in the long run if you stay on them – which would make this free drug program, basically, a direct-to-you sample offer. By offering these drugs free, in addition to lots of great PR, Pfizer can build brand loyalty and keep patients from switching to generics.”
Here’s an example. Let’s say Pfizer can get a doctor to hand out Zoloft samples for a depressed realtor. After a month on the samples the realtor feels much better. There’s no more refills and he’ll need to purchase it. Because this is the only antidepressant that “works” for this realtor, the insurance company would have to approve the med. cost per month: $100. A year of treatment: $1200. 1000 depressed realtors treated for a year: $1.2 million!
Now let’s say Pfizer did not give out the samples. The said doctor would provide the same depressed realtor generic prozac. cost per month: $25. A year of treatment: $300. Now let’s say out of a 1000 depressed realtors, 900 were ok on prozac but 100 couldn’t tolerate prozac and had to be switched to Zoloft. What’s the cost to treat for a year? $390,000.
Just by trying the cheaper alternative first, and only allow people that can’t tolerate it to take the higher priced Branded medication would save over $800,000 in this scenario. So every time you get those samples from the doctor’s office and every time you get that branded medication as the first line therapy, you have just taken part in why medical cost will ultimately bankrupt this country.
