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Thread ID: 83225	2007-09-24 06:20:00	The price of medicine...	mabix (10146)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
594446	2007-09-24 06:20:00	Is going up way tooo fast. My grandfather just bought his regular prescription of voltaren, pulled out an old box and noticed a price increase from $9.65 in 2005 to $22.90 today??? WHAT??? Can anyone explain why??? And whether they should be allowed to do this??	mabix (10146)
594447	2007-09-24 07:12:00	Is going up way tooo fast. My grandfather just bought his regular prescription of voltaren, pulled out an old box and noticed a price increase from $9.65 in 2005 to $22.90 today??? WHAT??? Can anyone explain why??? And whether they should be allowed to do this?? I can't help you there, but the medication my mother needs has gone up about 200% since 2005 as well. It looks like pharmac no longer subsidizes most of the stuff she needs. I think the government should be taken to task, not that they will as they get too much from gst on the medicine. I really think the health system has gone to the pack in this country. :angry	intel hunter (6666)
594448	2007-09-24 07:30:00	Can't explain why the prices have gone up but I think its disgusting. I was suppose to be on Tramadol regularly but its $1 a pill (no subsidy) I had to then go on a cocktail of different pills including some not so good ones in order to get the same results. Its just ridiculous. Luckily I can at least afford those pills as they have a subsidy (now cost $3 per script) but can't see how the elderly who live off very little can afford such things when going to the doctors to get scripts cost $40 or just to ring in for a script cost $20 every 3 months or more for some pills.	never-u-mind (6500)
594449	2007-09-24 07:33:00	Ask for the generic.	zqwerty (97)
594450	2007-09-24 08:21:00	I too take Voltaren. I got my new scrip today & it is $9 for 60 Tablets. Voltaren is a triangular tablet, orangy/pink. No charge to me. A few years back, Pharmac refused to pay the price for Voltaren, however if it was the brand you were used to & no other would do the same job, you got a dispensation. I know this is true because it happened to me. So the Voltaren company brought out a generic tablet that looked exactly the same. The story was that they were made out of lower quality ingredients & therefore were cheaper. Make your own mind up about that. My Voltaren is called Diclofenac sodium SR tablets.I suspect it is the cheaper version. I do not have an original container any more but I am pretty sure that the old container with Voltaren on it also had that Diclo...on it as well. I suggest you go & talk to your chemist about it & see if any of the above still stands. It is possible that genuine original Voltaren is expensive. PJ	Poppa John (284)
594451	2007-09-24 09:15:00	So the Voltaren company brought out a generic tablet that looked exactly the same. The story was that they were made out of lower quality ingredients & therefore were cheaper. Make your own mind up about that. I doubt the patent-holders for Voltaren would sell a "cheaper" version of the same drug. Generic drugs are supposedly a bio-equivalent of the patented medicine - and in every case they are because the quality controls for pharmaceuticals are so rigorous. However, what differs is the excipients used. Excipients are sometimes called "fillers" , but they serve a more important function than simply to hold a tablet together. They often stabilise the drug itself - making it more stable over a wide range of temperatures etc. When a pharmaceutical company is developing a drug they often develop the excipients along with it. This is proprietary information and I don't think it forms part of the patent. This means that when a company is producing a generic version they have to backward-engineer the excipients used - or develop their own - and this can have an effect on the pharmacokinetics, which is the way that the body processes the drug.	Deane F (8204)
594452	2007-09-24 09:26:00	Deane F... This is what I was told by my chemist when I was living in Papatoetoe. I must believe him. PJ	Poppa John (284)
594453	2007-09-24 11:44:00	Is going up way tooo fast. My grandfather just bought his regular prescription of voltaren, pulled out an old box and noticed a price increase from $9.65 in 2005 to $22.90 today??? This depends on which version of Voltaren that you are talking about. "Voltaren" in general is fully subsidised, while "Voltaren SR" is not subsidised by Pharmac: Manufacturer Price: $19.60 Patient Charge: $33.81 Deane F, I would be interested in knowing where have you got hold of the information from. As far as I am aware of, generic drugs work equally well compared to branded ones. Sometimes when a pharmacy store runs out of a particular brand of medicine, the pharmacist may offer the client the equivalent generic one in replacement. Cheers :)	Renmoo (66)
594454	2007-09-24 19:54:00	Deane F, I would be interested in knowing where have you got hold of the information from. As far as I am aware of, generic drugs work equally well compared to branded ones. Sometimes when a pharmacy store runs out of a particular brand of medicine, the pharmacist may offer the client the equivalent generic one in replacement. Jamuz I've got hold of the information over a number of years of being interested in the subject. Generic drugs are not subject to the same process as is the initial release of the drug by the patent holder. There is no monograph for the generic and there are no exhaustive clinical trials in vivo (in the body - as opposed to in vitro "in the glass"). Simply to say that a generic is bioequivalent does not go far enough. The process that a drug goes through while being metabolised by the body (its pharmacokinetics) is as important (or more important) than the chemical breakdown of the actual drug. This is because human bodies are not machines and are not uniform amongst populations. For instance, a significant proportion of the US population does not produce a certain enzyme that is known to metabolise some tricyclic antidepressants. Ask any doctor - or a hospital pharmacist that actually does rounds with patients (ie: clinical experience...) - and they know that their patients have experienced lowering of a drugs efficacy when changed to a generic. This clinical experience of generics is, in the end, the only thing that really matters with pharmaceuticals.	Deane F (8204)
594455	2007-09-24 20:26:00	Hi Deane . I have got a class at 8am, but these are a few examples of clinical studies done on comparing generic to branded drugs that I can find so far from University's Medline . (Full articles are not posted in case of copyright issues) Effects of Branded Versus Generic Terazosin Hydrochloride in Adults with Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia: A Randomized, Open-Label, Crossover Study in Taiwan - April 2007 In this small, open-label study in Taiwanese patients with symptomatic BPH (Benign Prostatifc Hyperplasia), the efficacy of generic terazosin was not significantly different from that of branded terazosin . No significant differences in the prevalences of AEs (adverse effects) were found between the 2 formulations . ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brand Versus Generic Oral Contraceptives – August 2007 Generic OCs approved by the FDA have been shown to be bioequivalent and pharmaceutically equivalent to the branded product and are interchangeable . There are no evidence-based data to challenge this conclusion . ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am not sure whether I can accept your argument on the decrease in efficacy in terms of pharmacokinetics of the generic drugs . I shall ponder about it later on . Cheers :)	Renmoo (66)
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