Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest drug maker, yesterday announced initiatives designed to cut the price of prescription drugs for those on Medicare and to provide the nation’s uninsured with medicines that are free or available at significant savings.
Analysts say Pfizer’s discounts — larger than those of most major pharmaceutical companies, to date — are in response to Americans’ concern about the rocketing cost of health care, particularly prescription drugs, and the rising number of families without insurance.
The number of uninsured Americans has risen by 2 million to 43 million since 2001, and those without insurance receive about $35 billion in uncompensated care yearly, Pfizer said.
Key elements of the new “Pfizer Pfriends” initiative for the uninsured, which gets under way next month, and other drug-assistance programs Pfizer is offering are as follows:
• Families making less than $45,000 per year, or less than $31,000 for individuals, will receive average savings of 37 percent and up to 50 percent off the average cash price at retail pharmacies for most Pfizer drugs.
For example, a working father earning $41,000 a year, who now pays $79.58 a month for Pfizer’s cholesterol-lowering medicine, Lipitor, will see his cost fall to $52.71 a month, a savings of nearly 34 percent.
• Families making more than $45,000 per year, or more than $31,000 for individuals, will receive average savings of 15 percent, and up to 25 percent off the average cash price at retail pharmacies for most Pfizer medicines.
• Families making less than $31,000 per year, or less than $19,000 for individuals, can receive free Pfizer medicines from their doctors or from eligible federally qualified community health centers and hospitals.
• Low-income Medicare beneficiaries on all Medicare-approved drug discount cards will be able to buy many Pfizer drugs for a flat fee of $15 per prescription after they have exhausted the program’s $600 credit.
Robert M. Hayes, president of the Medicare Rights Center, a New York nonprofit consumer group, said, “Pfizer’s new programs will offer real lifelines to people in need,” but they “will help only a small fraction of those in need.”
Mr. Hayes went on to say it’s a “national scandal that pharmaceutical companies are allowed to charge Americans double the price for prescription drugs that they charge Canadians and Europeans.”
What’s more, he said, Pfizer’s new discount programs “show that the drug industry will continue to thrive even with dramatic price cuts.”
A representative for AARP, who asked not to be identified, said it’s a “benefit” that some drug firms are lowering prices. But what’s needed, she said, is for all U.S. prescription drug prices to be reduced.
Mr. Hayes agreed.
“There’s no question that pharmaceutical firms are frightened to death at the prospect of” lawmakers in Congress “forcing U.S. drug prices down to Canadian levels,” he said yesterday.
Mr. Hayes said he expects that to be the first order of business when Congress reconvenes next year.
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