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Biotech / Medical : PFE (Pfizer) How high will it go? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim Lamb who wrote (7274)	3/23/1999 9:51:00 AM
From: Anthony Wong	Respond to of 9523

Pfizer's Viagra, Roche's Xenical May Hike Swiss Insurance Costs Bloomberg News March 23, 1999, 7:13 a.m. ET Pfizer's Viagra, Roche's Xenical May Hike Swiss Insurance Costs Bern, March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc.'s anti- impotence drug Viagra and Roche Holding AG's anti-obesity drug Xenical could cost Swiss insurers as much as 500 million Swiss francs ($342 million) annually, an industry group said today. The Association of Swiss Health Insurers said that drug costs in Switzerland have risen 40 percent since 1993 and rose 10.4 percent in 1998 alone. It warned that if insurance companies are required to cover the cost of providing Viagra and Xenical to all patients that want it, Swiss insurance premiums could rise an additional 2-3 percent. Viagra and Xenical have become the two fastest-selling prescription drugs in Switzerland since they were introduced last year, with Pfizer selling 530,000 Viagra tablets -- or one for every 6.4 Swiss men -- at a cost of about 10 francs each in the drug's first six months on the Swiss market. The Swiss Federal Department for Social Insurance recommended Monday that Swiss health-care insurers be obliged to meet their customers' costs of using Viagra and Xenical. Providing Viagra and Xenical ''will cost between 200 and 500 million Swiss francs a year,'' which will have to be passed on to Swiss consumers in the form of higher premiums, said Ueli Mueller, president of the association, at a press conference. Mueller said treating a patient with Xenical costs 2,200 francs per year, which is ''much too high'' for insurance companies to absorb. If the two drugs are included as recommended by the department, the association will take the case to an appeal commission and, if necessary, to the Federal Insurance Court, Mueller said. The objections by the association to including Viagra and Xenical as prescribable drugs comes as Swiss health care costs continue to rise. According to an estimate by the association, health care costs covered by the compulsory health insurance in 1998 rose 6.9 percent on year to 14 billion francs, surpassing the average insurance premium increase of 4.7 percent. According to the Federal Statistics Office, the total costs of health care in Switzerland, including the share paid for by the state, was 33 billion francs in 1993, up 78 percent from 1985.