Celebrex Price Increases as Lawsuits Mount
Medicare and Medicaid officials have noted large increases in the top 200 brand-name drugs including Celebrex that triple inflationary rates. In fact, the average price for Celebrex jumped 6% from November 2005 to April 2006, which is closer to five times the rate of inflation. “State, federal and family health care budgets are being stretched to the max,” said AARP chief executive officer Bill Novelli in a June 2006 news release. “It is simply unsustainable for American consumers to continue footing the bill for large increases in drug prices.”
As a result, insurers have also raised their premium rates that they charge their drug plan members. Seniors, as usual, will take the biggest hit because they are the most likely to be prescribed Celebrex and other medications. “At the same time that the Bush Administration and congressional leaders are touting the effectiveness of Medicare drug plans, those plans are quietly raising the prices that they charge,” said Ron Pollack, the executive director of Families USA.
To put it into perspective, the leading 75 generic drugs actually fell in price by an average 0.1% between March 2005 and March 2006.
Celebrex, part of the COX-2 family of pain relievers that include Vioxx and Bextra, is the only major “new generation” of pain relievers still available on the market. The growing amount of research that has linked cardiovascular problems including heart attack and stroke prompted a voluntary withdrawal of Vioxx and Bextra. Although Celebrex has also been shown to cause heart problems, the number of reported cases is lower, which perhaps is the reason why it remained. It received a “black box” warning, the highest warning level that the FDA demands for drugs that have shown the potential to cause death or serious injury with its use.
Still, medical legal analysts predict that the number of Celebrex lawsuits will be about half that of Vioxx, at about 13,000 country-wide as of June 2006. They also believe that the drug manufacturers will fight these lawsuits in court, given that most victims were older and already have health complications, making it harder to prove a direct link legally speaking between the drug and any particular instance of cardiovascular problem.
That said, every drug company has the legal obligation to ensure that their products are safe for use, and that the results of all research be made available for patients and health care professionals so that they can make an informed decision about their use.