Bad Medicine

Bad Medicine (Source: Boston Magazine)

From the article:

(Helen) Donega, who lives in North Adams, survived a mastectomy, then found she'd have to pay more than $100 a month for tamoxifen to prevent a recurrence. So she delayed taking it.

"You are gambling," she says, "and there are a lot of people who have more aggressive cancer than mine who did the same thing."

At issue in the tamoxifen case, which was dismissed by a trial judge and is now on appeal, is whether AstraZeneca struck a deal with a generic-drug company to extend the length of its brand-name patent, a practice called "evergreening." The cost of a drug often falls by as much as 80 percent when its patent expires, yet the alleged deal, plaintiffs continue to assert, allowed the company to charge 95 percent of its original price.

Editor's Note:

At the writing of this post, a 20mg tablet of Nolvadex (brand name of tamoxifen) was priced $3.65 at an American online pharmacy. A Canadian pharmacy listed Nolvadex at $0.97 for the same 20mg tablet. A women living with breast cancer taking a daily dose of 40mg will be forced to spend $219 every month for Nolvadex in the United States. From a Canadian pharmacy, the monthly cost would be only $58.20. Although the price of generic tamoxifen has dropped in the US, it still costs $1.27 per tablet - $0.30 more per tablet than the brand name product at a Canadian online pharmacy.