Can I get a Price Check? Anyone?

King Pharmaceuticals prides itself in the thyroid hormone replacement drug Levoxyl, one of the less expensive thyroid hormones available on the market today. Jones Pharmaceuticals, which is now a wholly owned subsidiary of King Pharmaceuticals, created the drug. The company says the “low average wholesale price makes Levoxyl affordable.” My mother has been taking hormone replacement drugs for about 25 years and during that time she has had prescription drug coverage. With her insurance the cost of a 90-day supply of Levoxyl is $15. This price is relatively inexpensive – a whole year will only cost $60. However, she has run into some problems with the pharmacy that fills her prescriptions a couple of times. One time the pharmacist charged her $10 for a 30-day supply of Levoxyl; she would end up paying $30 for a prescription that usually cost $15. After bringing this incident to the pharmacist’s attention he returned to the usual 90-day supply. If she had not addressed the issue with the pharmacists would she still be paying twice as much for her prescription? The pharmacists never fully explained why he had given her the smaller supply in the first place.

I contacted the Emerson Pharmacy, located in Emerson, New Jersey, to check the cost of Levoxyl for someone that does not have prescription drug coverage. For a 30-day supply a person would pay $19. This is very inexpensive compared to other types of prescription drugs but this person will still end up paying $228 for a year; where someone with coverage pays only $60. If my mother had not had coverage she would have spent $5,700.00 over the passed 25 years instead of $1,500. This is a considerable difference between prescription coverage and non-prescription coverage price. Someone who needs to take thyroid hormones will be taking them for the rest of their lives – overtime this is quite an expense.

My next step was to contact King Pharmaceuticals and ask them Levoxyl and wholesale prices. It was very easy to get through to Wendy, customer service representative. Unfortunately, she would not be able to help me with that information. Instead she transferred me to the legal department, they should be able to handle my questions. As soon as she said legal department I knew this was not going to be easy. But I did not have to worry about asking the right questions or introducing myself the best way to get information because no one answered my line. I let the phone ring for five minutes with no answer, not even a voicemail pick up. I wonder if Wendy just sent me to a mystery line that no one answers.

My second call was to the vendor inquiries number, there was an option for pricing questions so I thought I was on my way to finding answers. Again I was wrong, unless I had an account with King Pharmaceuticals they would not be able to give me any pricing information. My representative suggested I contact a wholesaler and ask them how much they pay for the drug, although she did not think they would give me that answer either.

Having no luck at finding what King pharmaceuticals charges a vendor for Levoxyl I have come to the conclusion that pharmaceuticals companies are just as secretive as government agencies; they do not want to give out any information. It is almost as if the public was aware of exactly how these drugs are developed, researched and priced they would be able to develop complaints that they could justify. Then companies would be forced to find ways to lower their costs and the retail costs of these prescriptions. As we have seen recently price is something pharmaceutical companies rarely justify with specific figures – they explain it as the high cost for research and development. If the public had more insight and understanding of the processes of this industry then we may be able to defend ourselves against these industry giants.