Statin prices: 20% crash confirmed http://www.pharmainfocus.com.au/news.asp?newsid=1826
Posted 16 July 2007 The long-apprehended 20% cut in the PBS price of simvastatin is set to bite next month, dragging numerous pravastatin brands down with it and earning Ranbaxy the ire of fellow generics makers and pharmacists alike. The August 1 PBS will see a 17.5% drop in simvastatin and pravastatin prices, adding to a 3% cut that came into force in April. However, it will not touch Pfizer's Lipitor (atorvastatin), still the largest selling statin in Australia. The simvastatin price slash was originally tipped to occur in April following a proposal put to the government by the local arm of India's Ranbaxy in November last year. The company had claimed that the lower price of its generic simvastatin had potential to save around $40 to $50 million per annum in PBS outlays, based on IMS MAT Sep 06 units. Around 15 companies ranging from the generic arms of Novartis (Sandoz), sanofi-aventis (Winthrop) and GlaxoSmithKline (Real-RL) to generic heavyweights Sigma and Alphapharm to Genepharm, GenRx and Generic Health (formerly Bellwether) along with statin originators such as Merck Sharp & Dohme and Bristol Myers Squibb are affected by the cut. According to the annual report of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Pricing Authority, the value of the statin market in Australia to June 30 2006 was $1.012 billion with Lipitor taking the lion's share at $579 million followed by simvastatin at $357 million and pravastatin at $76 million. <snip> _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
