Guest guest Posted November 1, 2010 Report Share Posted November 1, 2010 You just have to remember that these drugs are not necessarily manufactured in Canada or the US. > Novartis does not make deals with their products, unless it is a non-profit organization. ______________________ Hi Lottie and Margaret, I do not actually think that it is legal to order or obtain an Rx from Canada.....has anyone on the list done it? The Gleevec that is sold in Canada is the same Gleevec that is sold in the US.....I think it is still maybe just made in Ireland (Zavie, do you know?). The only generic Gleevec is made in India, and I am not sure that you can obtain that outside of India? Novartis DOES price this (and other drugs) according to what the market will bear....and has admitted that they charge more for it in the US because our insurances cover it and that is their money maker...to cover other markets where they cannot charge so much (like South America). This fact was part of the story (on PBS) about the different health care systems around the world.....Novartis clearly admitted this. Medicare should and could have purchased drugs from Canada, but that was a Bush compromise to our drug companies. ________________________ Here is an interesting comment from ASH in June that I just saw in the Fall edition of CURE magazine: " Generic copies of Gleevec will enter the market after the drug loses patent protection in 2015. The current wholesale price of Gleevec is about $4200 per month, but Kantarjian estimates the generics could be as low as $410 to $830 a month. Compare that to $7400 for a month's supply of Tasigna and $6950 per month for Sprycel. " (remember, these are wholesale prices) Another worthwhile comment from this Special Report: " For 10 years, Gleevec has been the closest thing to a cure for CML. Touted as a breakthrough, the drug has lived up to the hype. Deaths from CML dropped from 10 to 20% a year to 1%, says Hogop Kantarjian, chair of the dept. of leukemia at MDACC in Houston. " This means that instead of 50 to 100% of CML patients dying in 5 years (the stats prior to Gleevec), CML deaths are only about 5% in 5 years. Thank you Dr. Druker and Novartis! C. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 2, 2010 Report Share Posted November 2, 2010 I used to order drugs from Canada, but it's been a while and I don't remember how I did it. a ( Bobby ) Doyle, dob 12/17/29 DX 5/1995 Interferon 9 weeks/Hydroxyurea 5 years 02/2000 to 06/2002 Gleevec trial, OHSU 06/2002 Gleevec/Trisenox Trial, OHSU 06/2003 Gleevec/Zarnestra Trial, OHSU 04/2004 Sprycel Trial, MDACC, CCR in 10 months 04/2008 XL228 Trial, U of Mich. 01/2009 PCR 5.69 04/2009 Ariad Trial AP24534 09/2009 PCR 0.01 11/2009 PCR 0.034 02/2010 PCRU #840 Zavie's Zero Club From: hey00nanc <ncogan@...> Subject: [ ] Re: Gleevec in Canada Date: Monday, November 1, 2010, 5:59 PM Â You just have to remember that these drugs are not necessarily manufactured in Canada or the US. > Novartis does not make deals with their products, unless it is a non-profit organization. ______________________ Hi Lottie and Margaret, I do not actually think that it is legal to order or obtain an Rx from Canada.....has anyone on the list done it? The Gleevec that is sold in Canada is the same Gleevec that is sold in the US.....I think it is still maybe just made in Ireland (Zavie, do you know?). The only generic Gleevec is made in India, and I am not sure that you can obtain that outside of India? Novartis DOES price this (and other drugs) according to what the market will bear....and has admitted that they charge more for it in the US because our insurances cover it and that is their money maker...to cover other markets where they cannot charge so much (like South America). This fact was part of the story (on PBS) about the different health care systems around the world.....Novartis clearly admitted this. Medicare should and could have purchased drugs from Canada, but that was a Bush compromise to our drug companies. ________________________ Here is an interesting comment from ASH in June that I just saw in the Fall edition of CURE magazine: " Generic copies of Gleevec will enter the market after the drug loses patent protection in 2015. The current wholesale price of Gleevec is about $4200 per month, but Kantarjian estimates the generics could be as low as $410 to $830 a month. Compare that to $7400 for a month's supply of Tasigna and $6950 per month for Sprycel. " (remember, these are wholesale prices) Another worthwhile comment from this Special Report: " For 10 years, Gleevec has been the closest thing to a cure for CML. Touted as a breakthrough, the drug has lived up to the hype. Deaths from CML dropped from 10 to 20% a year to 1%, says Hogop Kantarjian, chair of the dept. of leukemia at MDACC in Houston. " This means that instead of 50 to 100% of CML patients dying in 5 years (the stats prior to Gleevec), CML deaths are only about 5% in 5 years. Thank you Dr. Druker and Novartis! C. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 2, 2010 Report Share Posted November 2, 2010 Hi all, I checked with Wal-Mart in Ogdensburg, NY and the price is $2794.68 for a 30 x 400 mg supply. It is much higher ($4,000) in Canada. Zavie Zavie (age 72) 67 Shoreham Avenue Ottawa, Canada, K2G 3X3 dxd AUG/99 INF OCT/99 to FEB/00, CHF No meds FEB/00 to JAN/01 Gleevec since MAR/27/01 (400 mg) CCR SEP/01. #102 in Zero Club 2.8 log reduction Sep/05 3.0 log reduction Jan/06 2.9 log reduction Feb/07 3.6 log reduction Apr/08 3.6 log reduction Sep/08 3.7 log reduction Jan/09 3.8 log reduction May/09 3.8 log reduction Aug/09 4.0 log reduction Dec/09 4.4 log reduction Apr/10 4.3 log reduction Oct/10 e-mail: <mailto:zmiller@...> zmiller@... Tel: 613-726-1117 Fax: 613-482-4801 Cell: 613-282-0204 ID: zaviem From: [mailto: ] On Behalf Of ROBERTA DOYLE Sent: November-01-10 8:04 PM Subject: Re: [ ] Re: Gleevec in Canada I used to order drugs from Canada, but it's been a while and I don't remember how I did it. a ( Bobby ) Doyle, dob 12/17/29 DX 5/1995 Interferon 9 weeks/Hydroxyurea 5 years 02/2000 to 06/2002 Gleevec trial, OHSU 06/2002 Gleevec/Trisenox Trial, OHSU 06/2003 Gleevec/Zarnestra Trial, OHSU 04/2004 Sprycel Trial, MDACC, CCR in 10 months 04/2008 XL228 Trial, U of Mich. 01/2009 PCR 5.69 04/2009 Ariad Trial AP24534 09/2009 PCR 0.01 11/2009 PCR 0.034 02/2010 PCRU #840 Zavie's Zero Club From: hey00nanc <ncogan@... <mailto:ncogan%40uoregon.edu> > Subject: [ ] Re: Gleevec in Canada <mailto:%40> Date: Monday, November 1, 2010, 5:59 PM You just have to remember that these drugs are not necessarily manufactured in Canada or the US. > Novartis does not make deals with their products, unless it is a non-profit organization. ______________________ Hi Lottie and Margaret, I do not actually think that it is legal to order or obtain an Rx from Canada.....has anyone on the list done it? The Gleevec that is sold in Canada is the same Gleevec that is sold in the US.....I think it is still maybe just made in Ireland (Zavie, do you know?). The only generic Gleevec is made in India, and I am not sure that you can obtain that outside of India? Novartis DOES price this (and other drugs) according to what the market will bear....and has admitted that they charge more for it in the US because our insurances cover it and that is their money maker...to cover other markets where they cannot charge so much (like South America). This fact was part of the story (on PBS) about the different health care systems around the world.....Novartis clearly admitted this. Medicare should and could have purchased drugs from Canada, but that was a Bush compromise to our drug companies. ________________________ Here is an interesting comment from ASH in June that I just saw in the Fall edition of CURE magazine: " Generic copies of Gleevec will enter the market after the drug loses patent protection in 2015. The current wholesale price of Gleevec is about $4200 per month, but Kantarjian estimates the generics could be as low as $410 to $830 a month. Compare that to $7400 for a month's supply of Tasigna and $6950 per month for Sprycel. " (remember, these are wholesale prices) Another worthwhile comment from this Special Report: " For 10 years, Gleevec has been the closest thing to a cure for CML. Touted as a breakthrough, the drug has lived up to the hype. Deaths from CML dropped from 10 to 20% a year to 1%, says Hogop Kantarjian, chair of the dept. of leukemia at MDACC in Houston. " This means that instead of 50 to 100% of CML patients dying in 5 years (the stats prior to Gleevec), CML deaths are only about 5% in 5 years. Thank you Dr. Druker and Novartis! C. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 2, 2010 Report Share Posted November 2, 2010 Thanks , Reading those statistics is always mind-blowing for me! Best, Leah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 3, 2010 Report Share Posted November 3, 2010 > > Thanks , > Reading those statistics is always mind-blowing for me! > > Best, > Leah ______________________________ Hi Leah, Here is another Dr. Druker tid bit along the same lines. Early on with Gleevec (I was on it in 2/2000) I asked Dr. Druker how he would know if the drug was slowing the progression of the disease....or if it was just killing off the ph+ cml cells but the disease would still progress. He told me he would not know until patients had been on Gleevec for 5 years. With normal disease progression they would expect a high (normal progression) death rate by 5 years if the drug was not slowing the progression. Once they reached the 5 year mark and his patients were still alive, he knew that the drug was holding cml patients in chronic phase. (At this time, I think that pcr testing was just developing and a bit experimental, so they mostly relied on bmb cytogenetics and FISH). Sometimes that is how science works. One thing about Dr. Druker, he always told it like it is.....he is scientific and does not sugar coat things. C. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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