Very Interesting

[Guest guest]

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 chart below

speaks

for itself.

This is based on 100 pills.

 

BRAND STRENGTH WE PAY STORE COST MARK UP

Celebrex 100 mg $130.27 $0.60 21,712%

Claritin 10 mg $215.17 $0.71 30,306%

Keflex 250 mg $157.39 $1.88 8,372%

Lipitor 20 mg $272.37 $5.80 4,696%

Norvasc 10 mg $188.29 $0.14 134,493%

Paxil 20 mg $220.27 $7.60 2,898%

Prevacid 30 mg $44.77 $1.01 34,136%

Prilosec 20 mg $ 360.97 $0.52 69,417%

Prozac 20 mg $247.47 $0.11 224,973%

Tenormin 50 mg $104.47 $0.13 80,362%

Vasotec 10 mg $102.37 $0.20 51,185%

Xanax 1mg $136.79 $0.024 569,958%

Zestril 20 mg $89.89 $3.20 & nbsp; 2,809%

Zithromax 600mg $1,482.19 $18.78 7,892%

Zocor 40mg $350.27 $8.63 4,059%

Zoloft 50mg $206.87 $1.75 11,821%

 

Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought

everyone I knew 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 Walgreens 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

$5499

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

althoughCostco 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. I am asking each of you to please help me by

copying this letter, and pasting it into your own email, and send it

to everyone you know

with an email address.