Notes for your Drug Plan - Pill Splitting and Ambien Warnings...
Two new considerations for your Rx program from recent issue of BusinessWeek:
1. Pill Split Programs:
"For years some patients have been saving money by splitting high-dose versions of
prescription drugs in half: While 30 20-mg tablets of Lipitor, Pfizer's (PFE ) best-selling cholesterol-lowering statin, might cost $116, 15 40-mg pills can cost just $58.
Not all pills can be safely split. But a new study from the University of Michigan finds that bisecting statin tablets has no adverse effect on patients' cholesterol levels. (Small fluctuations in levels aren't dangerous.)
The six-month study, reported in the June issue of the American Journal of Managed Care, followed 111 patients taking one of three statins: Lipitor, Bristol-Myers Squibb's (BMY ) Pravachol, or Merck's (MRK ) Zocor, the world's biggest-selling drugs. Without knowing how common pill-splitting is now, analysts say they can't estimate the financial impact of its becoming the norm. U-Mich started a pill-splitting plan for 500 of its employees and retirees last year, saving $195,000 in prescription drug coverage so far. Enrollees have saved a total of $25,000."
2. Making Employees aware of warnings with common lifestyle drugs:
"Even when government regulators raise alarms about safety, lifestyle drugs often prove irresistible. Millions of Americans, for example, routinely pop sleep medications, even though they are rarely troubled by insomnia, and the crutch is hard to give up. Last year several users of Ambien, from Sanofi-Aventis, reported bizarre incidents in which they consumed meals and drove their cars while asleep.
The FDA demanded that Sanofi and all other producers of sleep drugs add strong warnings to their labels. In March the agency further requested that they send letters to doctors notifying them of the warnings and that they print guides for patients that describe the side effects and provide advice on how to use the drugs safely. Undaunted, Americans consumed more than $700 million worth of Ambien in the first quarter of this year, a 54% jump over the same quarter in 2006. All told, prescriptions for Ambien, Sepracor Inc.'s (SEPR ) Lunesta, and similar drugs jumped 15% last year, to 47.8 million, according to health-care information provider IMS Health Inc. (RX ), and total sales grew 29%, to $3.6 billion."
My reaction? I continue to be amazed how Drug companies can create entire markets out of vapor. To be sure, there are some folks who get real benefits out of Ambien, but a 54% increase? What would the numbers be with proper distribution of the warnings? How do we attack that as HR people? Good questions needing more exploration.
Pill split program is interesting as well - I'll be looking for more info on how that works, since it seems like it would require a fair amount of administration, focus on saftey, etc...
