Sheesh, Kim. The prices for these old modulating therapys should be going down...not up.. I don't understand how they can get by with this.

It makes me think that more PwMS are turning down these therapies and that's why the price is higher??

copaxone just had a huge swing recently too. Went from 1600 to 23oo. its a shame, its just a shame.

how come Avonex with is LESS strength than Rebif, and ONE shot per week, instead of 3, so it required LESS materials, cost exactly the same as Rebif?? I never understood that.

I think it's all based on the stock market. We talked about this not too long ago on a Copaxone thread.

Doesn't have anything to do with the Stock Market, just 'normal' price increases. Avonex went up a little over $500 since last quarter.

Thanks Bill. I thought it did after someone from CuraScript, my mail order pharmacy for Copaxone told me that.

I reckon they are just gouging before the patents run out . . . then they'll tell us the drugs don't work that well anyway . . .

Cherie

Thanks for the laugh this morning, Cherie. It's such a shame.

Not sure where that number came from for Copaxone, because I remember seeing it at ~$2700 at least once last year, although I admit I don't look that often.

As for why they are the same price? You aren't paying much for the medicine or the syringe, or the materials they send along with it...you are paying for the years and years of research they put into it. A huge % of the cost of most high dollar meds is in the research it took to produce them, including the clinical trials and such (as well as the payoff to the investors who footed the bill for the research costs).

It is easy to get mad at these companies for trying to make a profit, but the reality is that without the profit motive in place, most of these drugs wouldn't exist. I don't like the high costs any more than anybody else, but until we decide to invest billions more dollars of taxpayer money in medical research, the investors are the ones paying for it, and they deserve to make a profit on the risk they take.