Entocort is EXPENSIVE!!!

I had no idea! I just went to fill the prescription and they tell me $700 with my discount!! It's over $1000 per month. I don't have health insurance and I know there's a patient assistance program for it but what do I do in the mean time???? I'm flabbergasted. . . I put a call in to the Dr. to see what the next move is.

*hugs*

Dana

I had no idea how much medications cost until I asked my dad a few months ago after I was on entocort for 5 months.... I was so shocked!

Okay, for anyone else out there who is ever faced with this. As of now, there is not a patient assistance program, but there is a little help. Your Dr. has to call the drug company, which is now Prometheus laboratories, not Astra Zeneca, and they can send his office samples of the Entocort. I'm not sure how much they are going to give, but come Monday I'm having my Dr. call. Not having insurance can turn one into a good patient advocate, even if it is for yourself :)

Wow, I can't believe it's THAT much there. Without insurance here, the full price is $186/month (Canada) which I had to pay for a couple of months. I could never pay that much for medication though, wow.

My Canadian pharmacy sells it generic, $89 for 100 3mg pills.

I've ordered meds from Canada before when I was on 6mp. . . much, much cheaper! I may look into that again. Thanks for reminding me :)

I'm glad I'm still on my parents' insurance, although that won't be the case much longer. I just got put on entocort 3mg 3x a day because a small bowel enteroscopy (pill camera) revealed quite a bit of inflammation in the middle-end portion of my small intestine (it was apparently just out of reach for a colonoscopy to detect).

Anyways without the insurance the price would be $914 for 90 capsules! That's unbelievable, about $10.16 per capsule.

If you are forced to get meds online from a Canadian pharmacy make sure you inspect your pills very carefully. Entocort is only made by AstraZeneca, as it is a brand name.

"Canadian" internet pharmacies often get their product from India, since drug companies have stopped shipping directly to the internet pharmacies as they cut into the number of American consumers and insurance companies they can gouge.

This means the internet pharmacies go to the cheapest source they can find - often India - which has a huge black market in pharmaceuticals. This black market involves small companies cooking up their own version of brand name drugs, usually Viagra and such but who knows what else. There is no quality control at these underground companies so you could be ingesting anything.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1718_pills/page4.shtml

This may be a weird question and something that cannot possibly happen, but could my doctor call in a prescription at a Canadian drug store if I had someone to pick it up and mail it to me? That way I'm not taking my chances ordering online from a pharmacy I'm not sure about. I'm just exploring all my options here. . . again I apologize is this is a silly question.

GDen said...

Rider Fan said...
If you are forced to get meds online from a Canadian pharmacy make sure you inspect your pills very carefully. Entocort is only made by AstraZeneca, as it is a brand name.

It's also available generically in Canada.

Interesting, I didn't realize the patent had expired. Thanks. Do you happen to know who the producer is?

Rider Fan said...
Interesting, I didn't realize the patent had expired. Thanks. Do you happen to know who the producer is?

The patent for drugs in Canada is shorter than in the US. It's my understanding that once a drug goes generic anybody can make it. They need to come up with their own formulation though. I've ordered lots of Asacol from an online Canadian pharmacy and have gotten it from two different manufacturers. I had my gastro look at the pills and he thought they'd be fine, though it seems impossible to tell unless you do chemical tests on them.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I had my Entocort perscription filled out, I (thank god) have insurance so I only had to pay $10.  When I got in the car I looked at the receipt the cost was $495 for 200 pills, I said to my hubby, what the hell do people who need this do if they don't have insurance?!?! I just can't even imagine.

It's insane that they can charge so much for medications.

It is riduculous how much it costs - if I get it at a local pharmacy I pay $250/month.

If I mail order it from my Insurance company, 3 months will cost me $50, just takes almost (2) weeks for me to get it from there so I usually end up getting the first month filled at the local phamacy and then getting the next few months worth via mail order.