Insurer reduces fees to asthmatics for inhaler from Marlboro company
By Lisa Rapaport BLOOMBERG NEWS
UnitedHealth Group Inc. has cut patient fees as much as 90 percent for an asthma inhaler made by Sepracor Inc. that doesn’t use a banned air pollutant.
U.S. regulators barred sales of inhalers containing CFCs, or chlorofluorocarbons, starting in 2009. Under the agreement announced yesterday, Sepracor’s Xopenex, one of four CFC-free inhalers introduced in response to the ban, will cost as little as $5 for patients covered by UnitedHealth.
Xopenex generated $41 million last year, and Sepracor estimates the inhaler will earn $105 million this year. The agreement with UnitedHealth, the biggest U.S. medical insurer, may help Sepracor take market share from CFC-free inhalers made by GlaxoSmithKline PLC., Schering-Plough Corp., and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.
Sepracor is “trying to compete on price and take advantage of the new CFC-free rules to build market share,” said Norman Edelman, a pulmonologist and Chief Medical Officer for the American Lung Association.
The older albuterol inhalers, which are generic, cost about $5 wholesale, compared with about $45 for new brand-name CFC-free inhalers, said Tim Heady, Chief Executive Officer of UnitedHealth Pharmaceutical Solutions, in a telephone interview yesterday. He declined to say how much Sepracor discounted Xopenex in return for lower patient fees.
The shares of Sepracor, based in Marlboro, Mass., rose 42 cents to $50.03 at 4 p.m. in Nasdaq stock market composite trading. Shares of Minneapolis-based UnitedHealth fell 2 cents to $53.12 in New York Stock Market composite trading.
UnitedHealth spoke with every company making a CFC-free inhaler before settling on Xopenex because Sepracor offered the best price, Heady said. Schering’s Proventil, Glaxo’s Ventolin and Teva’s ProAir inhalers are now on the highest-priced tier of UnitedHealth’s drug plans, costing patients at least $50.
“When we looked at this issue of older generic albuterol inhalers being phased out, we began talking to each of the manufacturers of the CFC-free inhalers to accomplish an affordable choice for our members,” Heady said yesterday.
All of the CFC-free inhalers are comparable in terms of safety and effectiveness, the lung association’s Edelman said.
“Sepracor has this really high-priced product they hoped to sell as more effective with fewer side effects, and that approach didn’t work,” Edelman said. |
