[nbritton]

I just came from the pharmacy, they billed medicare $983.08 for a 30 day supply of lutuda. That's $32.77 per pill! $546.16 per gram! I could buy an ounce of cocaine or a half pound of marijuana for that price!

What the hell is up with pharmaceuticals being allowed to literally extort us? If it weren't for the feds and state picking up the all of the tab I'd be totally f*cked.

I think I could have the doctor write the script as: one half to one 120 mg tablet of lutuda daily. That way they have to fill 30 120 mg tablets and then I can split them in half to get 60 60 mg tablets. 30 120 mg tablets quote for $1,108.94, so I'd basically get two for the price of one! Do you know of any other ways we can save money on our drugs?

[Sometimes psychotic]

I agree...my abilify was crazy high and I had to get special approval to be on the stuff because I have normal work based insurance. They blame it on research expenses and yet the gov subsidizes most of the research that lets them even get started on a new drug....and all these are minor mods of old APs anyway. I think by research they actually mean researching which catered lunch the docs prefer during sales pitches...

Part of the issue though is that there is a special approval for all APs in medicare/Medicaid because even a couple months worth of overpriced AP is less than a single day in the hospital. If all APs have required coverage for the majority of patients who need them most then they can charge whatever they want to...that is why lawmakers wanted to appeal the protection for APs and ADs to get costs back in line but it's still cheaper to keep people stable.

Yeah abilify 10mg was $1519.22 through Medco...I only paid $25. 30 pills...I'm not sure of the current illegal drug rates for comparison but you know after a year on that I could get a pretty nice car...

[nbritton]

Originally Posted by Sometimes psychotic

Part of the issue though is that there is a special approval for all APs in medicare/Medicaid because even a couple months worth of overpriced AP is less than a single day in the hospital. If all APs have required coverage for the majority of patients who need them most then they can charge whatever they want to...that is why lawmakers wanted to appeal the protection for APs and ADs to get costs back in line but it's still cheaper to keep people stable.

Yeah, I was surprised they never made me do a prior auth for this drug, is that the reason why? I didn't know that. My Medicare part D plan considers it a tier 3 drug and so the copay is 44%. Thankfully, Illinois Medicaid picks up the rest of the tab because I'm poor, so I only paid $3.60 out of pocket for my prescription.

[junkDNA]

i get invega sustenna shot. its like a couple thousand dollars for it. but i have medicaid/medicare and they pay all of it thank god

[Sometimes psychotic]

Antidepressants, Antipsychotics to Remain 'Protected' Medicare Part D Drugs -- AAFP News -- AAFP

Yeah they only finally decided to keep them protected a few days ago which I think is smart because I know I would have taken my chances off them rather than put up with certain side effects. Not saying I might not have gone back on in desperation but at the time I left risperidone for abilify I was ready to just quit entirely...

[nbritton]

Originally Posted by Sometimes psychotic

Antidepressants, Antipsychotics to Remain 'Protected' Medicare Part D Drugs -- AAFP News -- AAFP

Yeah they only finally decided to keep them protected a few days ago which I think is smart because I know I would have taken my chances off them rather than put up with certain side effects. Not saying I might not have gone back on in desperation but at the time I left risperidone for abilify I was ready to just quit entirely...

Thanks for that. Yeah it makes sense, one suicide or homicide because a patient couldn't get access to drugs is a multimillion dollar lawsuit waiting to happen. All those homicidal shooting sprees must have knocked some sense into them, I do believe these should remain a protected class of drugs. I'd rather go without an AP then deal with the side effects of the 1st gen products. I can't even take risperidone or seroquel, I'm allergic to them. Zyprexa is out because I've had bariatric surgery, and geodon screws with my heart. Lutuda has been great to me, no side effects at all.

[Sometimes psychotic]

Oh so you get to join the club of being allergic to an antihistamine too...the irony...I mean all the APs are derived from potent anti-histamines and for me I never needed Claritin while on them so they still seem to function that way plus that's part of the weight gain pathway. Anyway I'm allergic to Benadryl which is apparently the default med if you have a severe allergic reaction so on occasion the docs freak out a little...but they are OK once I give them an alternative med choice.

[Crescent Moon]

Originally Posted by nbritton

I just came from the pharmacy, they billed medicare $983.08 for a 30 day supply of lutuda. That's $32.77 per pill! $546.16 per gram! I could buy an ounce of cocaine or a half pound of marijuana for that price!

What the hell is up with pharmaceuticals being allowed to literally extort us? If it weren't for the feds and state picking up the all of the tab I'd be totally f*cked.

I think I could have the doctor write the script as: one half to one 120 mg tablet of lutuda daily. That way they have to fill 30 120 mg tablets and then I can split them in half to get 60 60 mg tablets. 30 120 mg tablets quote for $1,108.94, so I'd basically get two for the price of one! Do you know of any other ways we can save money on our drugs?

It costs a LOT of money to do the research and clinical trials involved in bringing a new drug to the marketplace. We would never have new drugs (and latuda is very new) if there was not a financial incentive to get the brilliant scientists working on new, more effective and safer treatments.

My beloved daughter is the beneficiary of a new drug that has effectively neutralized her bipolar symptoms for the last year. I am personally grateful for all they do to push though the experiments and failures to find new and better treatments.

[unlived]

makes me glad im in australia because i dont work i only have to pay $6 for every prescription so at the moment thats $6 for zyprexa $6 for for risperdal $6 for lamictal and $6 for valium no matter what dose i feel bad for people who have to pay hundreds

[Sometimes psychotic]

Originally Posted by Crescent Moon

It costs a LOT of money to do the research and clinical trials involved in bringing a new drug to the marketplace. We would never have new drugs (and latuda is very new) if there was not a financial incentive to get the brilliant scientists working on new, more effective and safer treatments.

My beloved daughter is the beneficiary of a new drug that has effectively neutralized her bipolar symptoms for the last year. I am personally grateful for all they do to push though the experiments and failures to find new and better treatments.

The money doesn't go to the scientists...as a scientist I can tell you that I make less than a school teacher despite being an assistant professor...we do it because we love it and want to help people. Most of the legwork is done by people on NIH or NIMH government funding for actual new targets etc. They figure out all the basic science and there is tons of it so you get something like the nmda receptor and based on known mechanisms you target glycine transport rather than risk excitoxicity. Then you get a company like lilly involved and they take a panel of known drugs and screen for activity in that regard then they start modifying things through organic chemistry....this used to be done here but now a panel of potential drugs will be synthesized typically in China but supervised by someone here. The thing is this stuff is fast and simple compared to all the biology that leads up to it. You test the compounds in mice if it doesn't kill anything you move on to larger animals then small trials in people. People are desperate they are typically paid to be in trials but not that much.....they get free meds but the meds are not expensive for the company to make. Doctors get paid to recruit people to the trials and monitor them etc but also there is this whole get your name on a paper thing that lends credibility to the study. I'm not saying it's not expensive but compared with the huge amount of federal funding these guys are basically showing up to a government sponsored potluck with an empty plate.

The thing is drugs based on design don't always work out...so they just scrap them entirely like the grm3 inhibitor lilly was making. So everytime you get your drug you're paying for the drugs that didn't work. Problem is some pharma isn't even doing drug design anymore because it tends to fail and that's expensive....they are just waiting around buying start ups and other companies that do have successful drugs due to the 95% fail rate. So you're not paying for what it took to get your drug made but all the other drugs that failed for unrelated conditions....

On a personal note we were working with a company on a bad diarrheal side effect to a psych drug it targeted GABA but had antipsychotic as well as anti anxiety effects. Really neat drug but obviously people aren't up for chronic diarrhea and even though we figured out what was likely causing the diarrhea they didn't ever get to go back to the compound library to look for ones without the side effect which would have been easy to screen for in vitro. We got $30,000 which was probably double what I make for that amount of work but the company investors decided to pull the plug on the entire company becuase it was taking too long and therefore too much money. This was still at the level of larger animal testing and the problem could have most likely been worked out but they just gave up. That's why they have such a high fail rate. The grm3 inhibitor from Lilly looked pretty good but it wasn't better than atypical antipsychotics so they dropped it. It may have been able to treat people who were non-responsive to d2 inhibitors but they dropped it not because it wasn't effective but because it wasn't better. No scientist would give up that easy...we'll work 30 years until we get it right but companies are looking for the low hanging fruit just take an old AP and tack a few methyl groups or a hydroxyl or whatever and you've got a new compound. Take and old statin and an old antidepressant and do the same...

Sorry for the rant...the whole pharma field is just such a mess and if you don't believe me look for the latest cure to be found for the hep c virus...it's priced not based on how much it cost to make but how much any given government can afford to pay. In the USA it will cost around $100,000 but in India $2,000....this is a company that started in California and they found something wonderful but they want to compress the entire lifetime cost for treating hep c into one 12 week treatment...each pill is $1000. So instead of chronic meds for life people can take 12 weeks of pills....clearly the cost is not so great that they can't sell the course for less given what they are charging India. What this tells me is it doesn't pay to be the country that supports research and development...this all came on the back of nih research and yet we're being charged the most. It like I went to a car plant and placed a ribbon on the too of the car and claimed I designed the whole thing and then wanted to sell it as mine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/op...cost.html?_r=0

[Bells129]

That's terrible! They shouldn't be able to charge you so much for something like medication. I'm so lucky I live in the UK and my meds are free.

[mgb46]

I've been taking 40 mg's of Latuda for the last 16 months. My Pdoc writes the script out for 80 mg's and I just split them in half. There are several online coupons available for a years worth of extra savings. The coupon combined with my insurance, I pay about 25.00 per 30. Before I had the coupon it was 60.00 per 30. It's a very expensive medicine. Maybe because it's still considered somewhat new. I would definitely get the coupon and print it out and take to your pharmacy. It's about a 30% savings per script.

Good Luck!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by Crescent Moon

It costs a LOT of money to do the research and clinical trials involved in bringing a new drug to the marketplace. We would never have new drugs (and latuda is very new) if there was not a financial incentive to get the brilliant scientists working on new, more effective and safer treatments.

My beloved daughter is the beneficiary of a new drug that has effectively neutralized her bipolar symptoms for the last year. I am personally grateful for all they do to push though the experiments and failures to find new and better treatments.

This new drug is it an AP. Im on seroquel , best med ive been on , but unfortunately its not the best ap. I just wish it was better and also wish I didnt have the dreaded metabolic syndrome , potentially hanging over me.

Originally Posted by nbritton

I just came from the pharmacy, they billed medicare $983.08 for a 30 day supply of lutuda. That's $32.77 per pill! $546.16 per gram! I could buy an ounce of cocaine or a half pound of marijuana for that price!

What the hell is up with pharmaceuticals being allowed to literally extort us? If it weren't for the feds and state picking up the all of the tab I'd be totally f*cked.

I think I could have the doctor write the script as: one half to one 120 mg tablet of lutuda daily. That way they have to fill 30 120 mg tablets and then I can split them in half to get 60 60 mg tablets. 30 120 mg tablets quote for $1,108.94, so I'd basically get two for the price of one! Do you know of any other ways we can save money on our drugs?

Really? That's unbelievable It's like the system is unintentionally encouraging people to use street drugs. I wonder if maybe, just maybe, the government puts dangerous street drugs like cocaine on the market and then the dealers sell it. Maybe the government just hands the big time gangster coke dealers a massive bag of cocaine and says "Here you go, sell this stuff, or do whatever you want with it, it's yours" and then the guy is just like "Wow, my crew just got a free ton of crack!" and is nothing but utterly ecstatic and makes millions of dollars from selling it. You never know. I wonder about stuff like that a lot, like if the government just wants to mess people over to keep everyone down and unable to voice themselves Who takes cokeheads/crackeheads/metheads/smackhead/pretty much anything with the name of a chemical and "head" at the end of it too seriously? It basically discredits and criminalizes large segments of society. What a perfect way would that be to take total control of a group of people, but get them hooked on illegal chemicals that essentially keep you a slave to it and living in a pile of garbage. Thank God I never did addictive drugs, other than alcohol but that's far too socially accepted to really be a drug although it is in a way but in a way it isn't because "drugs" are all things that people think of as questionable and dangerous and since no one thinks of alcohol that way it isn't really a drug. It's just beer or wine or liquor or whatever it is. You can get addicted to it and then the companies have a way of labeling it something more socially acceptable than "drug addiction" since the major corporations sell the stuff. The beer companies are huge just like big tobacco is. Did anybody know Budweiser is made by the same company as Bass? and even a Brazillian beer named Brahma? even a beer in Brazil (which I never drank) called Antartica Paulista is owned by the same company as Bud. You know even Miller is actually made by Anhouser Busch?!?!?!? They're all connected and really when it comes down to it, all companies are not "competitors" but allies. Allies in the corporate world that is. There are 9 independent corporations on Earth as my college professor told me. Sure, there are plenty of controls, checks and balances in the government, decent presidents, decent CEOS that keep it all from getting too messed up but still it's pretty crazy that basically illegal drugs that have a very, very high chance of killing you like crack and cocaine are effectively encouraged as opposed to RELATIVELY safe legal drugs like the one you are describing. Cocaine kills people all the time, probably one of the worst, most deadly drugs around but prescription drugs that are proven effective at treating medical conditons/mental illness are more expensive? Even still, do not ever smoke crack or snort coke as it very well may kill you Not exaggerating, it really is one of the more deadly drugs. Weed isn't really a horrible street drug though. Nobody ever died from it and the worst side effect is paranoia that usually only happens with high doses. It isn't deadly but if you have severe psychological problems it is probably best to stay away from it as it can bring the unconscious to the surface especially with massive amounts which might make you more psychologically unwell, temporarily anyways.