Cost of GH

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

We just moved back to the US and have to pay for GH for now until

insurance is sorted out. We got LOTS of quotes a couple of months

ago, so I can tell you how much GH costs from about 7 different

specialty pharmacies around the country.

For about 5 of the 6 GH manufacturers, the price is nearly identical

(funny that ...): on average $245 for, say, a 5.8 mg cartridge of

Genotropin. We switched to a new product called TEVTROPIN b/c it's

20% cheaper than the others (generic product; FDA approved last

year; somatropin; comes from TEVA out of Israel and distributed by

Gate Pharmaceuticals), so that is about $182 for a 5.0 mg vial

(doesn't come with a pen device ... we use the inject-ease).

The cost varies by how much your child needs, so we're obviously

trying to use the lowest dose that he grows on (it does NOT cost

$30,000 per year for young children, especially RSS/SGA children who

don't weigh very much anyway). Some endos go strictly by the

mg/kilogram formula whereas some doctors like Dr. H prefer to see

how well your child is growing and adjust the dose accordingly.

If you're having trouble getting insurance to pay for it, at least

do these things: (1) Call MAGIC! They might be able to help you with

your insurance problems and/or help you figure out who to talk

with ; (2) Talk to the pharmaceutical companies. A lot of them have

special programs (like Pfizer's Bridge Program) to help subsidize

the cost based on your income level. Be Assertive and really try to

get them to help you if you know there's no way you can pay for it;

(3) Find out about your state's medical insurance program for

children and how they might be able to help subsidize the cost for

you ... probably income based.

Unfortunately, even though the patent expired in 2003 for GH, the

price hasn't come down a lot b/c GH is very difficult to replicate

and there aren't lots of generic products available which would

bring the price down.

(Tyler's mum)