Patient Assistance Programs — Free Enterprise at Work

In a world of bad news for pharmaceutical companies one item crossed my desk that deserves some note.  Patient assistance programs are working and quite effective.    Astra Zeneca recently released a survey of how people learned about their patient assistance programs.  In all they received over 12,500 calls.  About half stated that they were drawn there either by referrals from their physicians (35%) or through a brochure delivered at the physician’s office (14%).

In 2007 AZ helped nearly half a million people fill 2.8 million prescriptions resulting in $500 million in savings to patients and families.

If the doctors were not informed, the patients would have never received these medicines.   If their rep had not stopped by and dropped off the brochures or informed the doctor, the patients would not have known and not been helped.

Every major pharmaceutical company has a patient assistance program; each year they give away billions of $ to needy patients across the country.  In an era of discussion around patients not getting the medication because they can’t afford them, companies and private industry has set up systems to help needy patients.  Perhaps more attention should be paid to these types of programs which cost very little to the taxpayer and help countless patients.

For links to patient assistance programs:

This is a clearing house of patient assistance programs:

Multiple Company Clearing Houses:

Partnership for Prescription Assistance

Needy Meds

RxAssist

Biotech Companies:  RxHope

Several Key Companies Programs:

Astra Zeneca Patient Assistance

Novartis Patient Assistance 

Merck Patient Assistance

Eli Lilly Patient Assistance

GSK Patient Assistance

Roche Patient Assistance

Genentech Patient Assistance

Johnson and Johnson Patient Assistance

Takeda Patient Assistance

Sanofi- Aventis Patient Assistance

Abbott Patient Assistance

BMS Patient Assistance

Schering Plough Patient Assistance