Glaxos Migraine Pill Spurned By Unitedhealth For Generic Combo
Treximet pairs Glaxos migraine pill Imitrex, whose U.S. patent ran out in February, with the anti-inflammatory drug naproxen, available without a prescription. The expense of those two generics together may soon fall to $5 a dose, said Tim Heady, chief of the pharmaceutical solutions unit for UnitedHealth Group Inc., which refuses to pay for Treximet on most of its plans. Treximet costs the top U.S. health insurer $18 a pill.
Glaxo and other drugmakers facing the loss of sales as a patent expires on a popular medicine may release a new version thats longer acting, or combines two drugs in one pill, Heady said. While these companies say such reformulations are better than their predecessors that have gone generic, insurers and doctors arent convinced theyre worth the price.
“There is nothing in Treximet that one cant get for significantly less dollars,” Heady said in a telephone interview. “There are instances where drugs are being brought to market that really arent different or offering any real benefit from a clinical or cost perspective. In those instances, it makes sense not to cover the drug at all.”
When a medicines patent expires, a drugmaker may lose as much as 80 percent of sales to generic copies. Getting U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for a reformulated drug lets companies sell the new version with a fresh patent, according to U.S. guidelines.
Added Costs
Such reformulations add to costs for patients, governments and businesses, Jerry Avorn, a physician and professor at Boston-based Harvard Medical School who studies medical cost effectiveness, said a telephone interview.
“In these times, when people are trying to scrape together enough money to pay for their medicines, not to mention their mortgage and their meals, it is absurd to combine two generics and try to sell it for this price,” Avorn said.
Treximet is superior to Imitrex, said Stanley Hull, Glaxos senior vice president of U.S. pharmaceuticals.
“We have definitely been meeting resistance in the marketplace in this whole movement to try to use more generic medicine, and it is a disadvantage to patients who suffer from debilitating headaches,” Hull said.
Glaxo, based in London, increased 2 pence, or less than a percent, to 1,115 pence in London trading yesterday. The company rose 1.2 percent over the 12 months before today.
Refused Coverage
“There are clearly practices that dont add value to health care, but I dont begrudge the pharmaceutical manufacturers from looking for ways to protect the brand,” Heady said. “It is just natural. The question is, what can United do to help our customers and our members continue to have affordable access to the drugs they need?”
AstraZeneca developed Nexium, similar to its heartburn drug Prilosec, which lost patent protection. Prilosec is now priced at about 60 cents a pill while Nexium costs about eight times as much on Drugstore.com. Blair Haines, a spokesman for AstraZeneca, said the London-based company performed 12 studies showing Nexium controls gastric acid better than Prilosec.
Patient Choice
Schering-Plough Corp.s Clarinex, sold by Drugstore.com for about $4.00 a pill, and Claritin, costing about $1 a pill and available in generic form, are both antihistamines. Its important for patients to have many choices of allergy medicines because individual responses to medications differ, said Julie Lux, a spokeswoman for Kenilworth, New Jersey-based Schering- Plough.
Glaxo introduced Treximet in April 2008, promoting it as an improved version of the best-selling Imitrex, with $1.26 billion in sales last year.
Its more convenient for patients to swallow a single pill, and the ingredients are absorbed faster than if they were taken separately, said John Plachetka, chairman and chief executive officer of Pozen Inc., of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, one of the developers of Imitrex. Glaxo licensed the drug from Pozen in 2003.
Francis Conidi, director of the Florida Center for Headache and Neurology, in Port Saint Lucie, Florida, said he isnt sold on Treximets virtues.