Lipitor Patent Day
Today (or, given time zones, yesterday) the best-selling drug of all time goes off patent in the USA.
Atorvastatin (Lipitor) became such a gigantic commercial success for two main reasons: it actually works slightly better than the earlier cholesterol-lowering drugs, and Pfizer funded several large clinical trials proving that it worked better. Despite the (often justified) cynicism about drug marketing and approval, the regulatory process does mean that effective treatments are more profitable than ineffective ones — in sharp contrast to supplements and herbals, where effective treatments don’t have any real marketing advantage.
The patent expired earlier in New Zealand: in June 2010, Pharmac found a generic supplier and reduced the price for a month’s supply from $18 (for the lowest dose) to $1.77. In the US, Lipitor costs more than US$3 per pill, so there’s even more room for price decreases.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »
Good spot. Looking at Pharmac’s site, it’s 1 tablet per day and was $18.32 for 30 in NZ before the new contract when it fell to $1.40 for 90 (3 months worth).
Even at the previous price (assuming your $3/tablet is correct), the NZ price was less than 20% of the US price. No wonder the drug companies would like to emasculate Pharmac.
Lets just hope our new Government doesn’t let them.
12 years ago