Pfizer to double patient assistance allowance in the US
pharmafile | November 9, 2015 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Drug pricing, Pfizer
Pfizer says it will double the allowable income level for its RxPathways patient assistance program in the US with immediate effect, making many more eligible to receive the company’s medicines for free.
The company said the move was its response to the “ongoing challenges patients face in paying their out-of-pocket costs for their prescription medicines,” amidst much debate in the US on the subject of drug affordability. The Health and Human Services department announced this week the launch of a task force to tackle the issue.
As a result of the change, more than 40 medicines offered for free through the program will now be available to eligible patients earning up to four times the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) adjusted for family size ($47,080 for a single person; $97,000 for a family of four).
Critics said however that the move does not address the underlying issue of high drug prices and that insurers would respond by raising patients’ premiums to compensate. “This is the wrong approach when you consider the cost impact that patients have on the back end,” Clare Krusing, a spokeswoman for the trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans, told Yahoo News.
Through its Pfizer RxPathways program, Pfizer offers patients, including those with health insurance and those without, several individual services to assist with gaining access to its drugs.
Pfizer says in the last five years to 2014, it helped nearly 2.5 million uninsured and underinsured patients gain access to more than 30 million prescriptions, calling RxPathways “the most comprehensive program of its kind.”
Sally Susman, executive vice president of corporate affairs at Pfizer, says: “We have listened to patients and acted quickly to significantly expand the eligibility of our patient assistance programs. While patient assistance is not a permanent solution, it is a necessary step for helping to solve some of the high co-pay issues that some patients face. The real solution is to have a system that provides patients with access to innovative new treatments their doctors’ prescribe and insurance plans with good coverage.”
RxPathways programmes include savings ranging from 35% to 50% off the retail price on Pfizer medicines for uninsured patients regardless of income; medicine access counselling; insurance counselling for select medicines; co-pay cards for those with private/commercial insurance and information on alternate sources of help.
Joel Levy
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