Druggists Don’t Fear Wal-Mart Move
By Jim Stafford, The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City
May 6–The discounts on prescription drugs at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. just got deeper and wider.
The world’s largest retailer announced Monday that it would expand its discounted prescription drug program to offer 90-day supplies for $10 and add several women’s medications at a discount price.
It also said it would lower the price of more than 1,000 over-the-counter drugs.
The move marks the third phase of a company program that began in 2006 to provide a 30-day supply of generic prescription drugs for $4. The Bentonville, Ark.-based company said the program has saved their customers more than $1 billion on prescription drugs.
The original $4 generic drug program got off to a controversial start in Oklahoma and other states that objected to the low margins at which the drugs were priced.
Soon after the program was introduced in late 2006, the Oklahoma Board of Pharmacy asked the retailer to raise prices on some generics. The board was responding to complaints from state pharmacists who alleged the Wal-Mart program priced drugs below the “cost plus 6 percent” levels required by state law.
However, the dispute died quietly a couple of months later when Wal-Mart satisfied the pharmacy board that it was not selling drugs below cost.
Wal-Mart showed state officials that only a 30-day supply, meaning 30 capsules or doses, was priced at $4.
“We worked it out,” said Bryan Potter, executive director of the pharmacy board. “They showed me that if you took them twice a day, 60 of them (per month) were more than $4.”
Now Wal-Mart is pricing the generic drugs at $10 for a 90-day supply, even less than the original $4 program.
Potter said he hasn’t seen a repeat of the controversy.
“I’ve not had anyone complain about the new program at all,” Potter said. “We don’t really look at the prices unless it’s fraudulent or something like that. The only reason we did on the other one is that it was (an apparent) violation of the state law.”
The company on Monday began filling prescriptions for up to 350 generic medications at $10 for a 90-day supply at its U.S. Wal-Mart, Neighborhood Market and Sam’s Club pharmacies.
The state’s independent pharmacists weathered Wal-Mart’s original generic $4 program by introducing their own discount card programs, said Phil Woodward, executive director of the Oklahoma Pharmacists Association.
“Some of my pharmacists say that it has hurt them, and others say, ‘I can get my own discount card going and I can compete with them,’” Woodward said.
“It’s just another advertising gimmick to get people to shop with (Wal-Mart).”
Almost all the prescription generics in the company’s $4 program were included in the expanded $10 offer, said Wal-Mart Senior Vice President John Agwunobi.
The retailing giant will add several women’s medications to its list of prescriptions available for $9, including drugs to treat breast cancer and hormone deficiency.
For instance, alendronate, the generic version of osteoporosis medication Fosamax, will be added to the list.
Company pharmacies will fill 30-day prescriptions of alendronate for $9 and a 90-day supply for $24. That compares to $54 and $102, respectively, that women previously paid for the same amounts, the company reported.
Tamoxifen, used to treat breast cancer, will be offered for $9 for a 30-day supply.
Combination estrogen/methyltestosterone tablets, prescribed for menopause and hormone deficiency, also were added to the discount list.
Wal-Mart also will lower the prices of more than 1,000 over-the-counter medications to $4 or less in its pharmacies, company officials said.
The company has sold over-the-counter medicines in the past at discounted prices, but revised and expanded its offerings to include commonly used drugs that usually sell for $7 or more, company spokesman Deisha Galberth said.
The over-the-counter medication price decreases represent about one-third of the retailer’s over-the-counter medicines.
Those include Wal-Mart’s Equate versions of popular drugs including Zantac, Pepcid and Claritin, and Wal-Mart’s Spring Valley brand of prenatal vitamins.
Since the prescription drug pricing program was introduced in 2006, Wal-Mart’s $4 generic drug plan has expanded to every state except North Dakota, where Wal-Mart does not have pharmacies within its stores.
And many competitors to Wal-Mart have followed the retailer’s lead.
While stressing that the expansion was designed to help customers at a time of exorbitant health care costs and difficult economic times, Agwunobi said the Wal-Mart program has worked in everyone’s favor.
“This is the time for us now to begin building capacity,” he said. “It offers (customers’) employers potential savings. It offers the customers significant savings. It also offers us the ability to add capacity to our pharmacies without adding people.”
Contributing: The Associated Press
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