Example: Lipitor, the largest selling drug in the world, is used to treat high cholesterol. This drug has over $11 billion in annual sales, and is usually prescribed a 10mg tablet once a day to reduce LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) by 25-30%. Chances are that you, or someone you know is on Lipitor. Retail price for Lipitor is around $65. There are more than 45,000,000 Americans who don’t have prescription drug insurance, and must pay the full cost of $65/month every 30 days. Approximately two-thirds of the consumers taking Lipitor can safely and effectively lower their LDL cholesterol by taking lovastatin that costs about $43 at retail. This would lead to a $22/month savings or $264/year.

By shopping around by phone or on the Internet with several different pharmacies, lovastatin can be purchased for as little as $23 (Costco mail order, no membership required). Your local pharmacy may also be willing to match such prices in order to keep customers. Here the savings would be $43/month or $516/year.

Tablet Splitting: Some patients may find the effectiveness of lovastatin to be less than Lipitor. Their doctors can write prescriptions for a half tablet daily of 20mg Lipitor, and receive exactly the same medication in the same dose for about $47 rather than $65. Savings here would be $28/month or $336/year. Drugs that can be tablet splitted will be marked with a * symbol.

Resources: Prescription drugs for half price or less, Stephen S.S. Hyde. Formulary Preference sheets from Drugstores such as Walmart. “Drug requests are more specific”, The Wall Street Journal, 4/15/2002

I have also used my personal experience working in the Healthcare informatics industry, primarily doing cost-savings analysis of large Healthcare providers in California.