Asacol and Lialda contain the same drug.
Asacol is:
1. Off-patent so it is available in generic form.
2. You may have to take as many as eight pills throughout the day.
3. Costs $1 per pill (50 cents in Canada).
Lialda is:
1. Patented since it uses a different slow-release method.
2. Larger so that you can take half as many pills.
3. You MAY only need to take it once per day.
3. Costs $5 per pill.
Lialda is typical of the ploy that drug firms use to keep drug costs maximized. The scenerio goes like this:
A drug goes off patent and the price of its generic version plunges.
A drug company invents some enhancement to the medication (like a different delivery system),
that will allow them to re-patent the same drug.
The "new and improved" medication is released with tremendous fanfare and your physicians are instructed to push it.
There are hundreds of announcements of the FDA approval of Lialda on the Internet. Just perform a web-search.
You will find that each ad states that Lialda was found to be more effective than placebo.
But nowhere will you find a study or even discussion of the effectiveness of Lialda against the cheaper Asacol.
The pharmaceutical companies and their physician stooges depend upon three things to get you to go for the more expensive treatment:
1. That you are new to IBD and that you are ignorant of Asacol.
2. That you are so desperate to end your flare-up symptoms that you will try anything, no matter what the cost.
3. That you won't notice that Lialda costs $600/month because you only pay $75 and your insurance will pick up the rest.
The choice is yours.
Post Edited (Felinis) : 6/19/2008 7:51:51 PM (GMT-6)