Posted 8:14 AM by Bonnie

FYI: This was passed on to me by a friend and member of my TOPS group and thought it was interesting and important enough to post. After all, we are reaching the age where our bodies will start needing some of these drugs. I am so grateful I only need my arthritis and asthma medications, while others like my husband are taking more drugs than food to keep functioning. So, for those who have a Costco in there area this should be interesting reading material. Go Costco!!

Let's hear it for Costco!! (This is just mind-boggling!) Make sure
you read all the way past the list of the drugs
The woman that signed below is a Budget Analyst out of federal
Washington, DC offices.

Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for the active
ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think it must cost a lot, since
many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet. We did a search of
offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the active ingredients found
in drugs approved by the FDA. As we have revealed in past issues of
Life Extension, a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United
States contain active ingredients made in other countries. In our
independent investigation of how much profit drug companies really make,
we obtained the actual price of active ingredients used in some
of the most popular drugs sold in America.


The data below speaks for itself.


Celebrex: 100 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $130.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.60
Percent markup: 21,712%

Claritin: 10 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71
Percent markup: 30,306%

Keflex: 250 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $157.39
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.88
Percent markup: 8,372%

Lipitor: 20 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $272.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $5.80
Percent markup: 4,696%

Norvasc: 10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $188.29
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.14
Percent markup: 134,493%

Paxil: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $220.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $7.60
Percent markup: 2,898%

Prevacid: 30 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $44.77
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.01
Percent markup: 34,136%

Prilosec: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $360.97
Cost of general active ingredients $0.52
Percent markup: 69,417%

Prozac: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $247.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.11
Percent markup: 224,973%

Tenormin: 50 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $104.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.13
Percent markup: 80,362%

Vasotec: 10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $102.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.20
Percent markup: 51,185%

Xanax: 1 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $136.79
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.024
Percent markup: 569,958%

Zestril: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) $89.89
Cost of general active ingredients $3.20
Percent markup: 2,809

Zithromax: 600 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $1,482.19
Cost of general active ingredients: $18.78
Percent markup: 7,892%

Zocor: 40 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $350.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $8.63
Percent markup: 4,059%

Zoloft: 50 mg
Consumer price: $206.87
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.75
Percent markup: 11,821%

A note from the person who passed the information onto Madeline:

Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought
everyone should know about this. Please read the following and pass it on.
It pays to shop around. This helps to solve the mystery as to why they
can afford to put a Walgreen's on every corner. On Monday night,
Steve Wilson, an investigative reporter for Channel 7 News in Detroit,
did a story on generic drug price gouging by pharmacies. He found
in his investigation, that some of these generic drugs were marked up as
much as 3,000% or more. Yes, that's not a typo.....three thousand
percent! So often, we blame the drug companies for the high cost of
drugs, and usually rightfully so. But in this case, the fault clearly
lies with the pharmacies themselves. For example, if you had to buy a prescription
drug, and bought the name brand, you might pay $100 for 100 pills.
The pharmacist might tell you that if you get the generic equivalent,
they would only cost $80, making you think you are "saving" $20. What
the pharmacist is not telling you is that those 100 generic pills may
have only cost him $10!

At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr. Wilson whether or
not there were any pharmacies that did not adhere to this practice,
and he said that Costco consistently charged little over their cost for
the generic drugs.

I went to the Costco site, where you can look up any drug, and get its
online price. It says that the in-store prices are consistent with the
online prices. I was appalled. Just to give you one example from my own
experience, I had to use the drug, Compazine, which helps prevent nausea
in chemo patients.

I used the generic equivalent, which cost $54.99 for
60 pills at CVS. I checked the price at Costco, and I could
have bought 100 pills for $19.89. For 145 of my pain pills, I paid
$72.57. I could have got 150 at Costco for $28.08.

I would like to mention, that although Costco is a "membership" type
store, you do NOT have to be a member to buy prescriptions there,
as it is a federally regulated substance. You just tell them at the door
that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they will let you in. (this is
true)

I went there this past Thursday and asked them. I am asking each of you
to please help me by copying this letter, and passing it into your
own e-mail, and send it to everyone you know with an e-mail address.