Lipitor Patient Retention Plan

 As of this morning, there are three sources of atorvastatin approved for the US market - Pfizer's brand name drug Lipitor and generics from Watson Pharmaceuticals and Ranbaxy Laboratories. Pfizer has a strategy for maintaining its market share for the next six months that includes a patient co-payment card. See my earlier post on the rising popularity of this strategy, The Life Cycle of a Drug: Patient Retention. The card Pfizer is offering can be ordered at LipitorForYou.com, and allows its customers to pay only $4 of any co-payment up to a maximum of $50. Here is the link to Pfizer's FAQ for the co-payment card, including details of the terms and conditions of their offer. Pfizer's overall goal is to sell Lipitor at or below generic prices until May 2012.

Pfizer is also using a new strategy involving contracts with UnitedHealthcare, Coventry Health Care, Express Scripts, Medco Health Solutions, CVS/Caremark and Catalyst Rx, which substitute Pfizer's brand name Lipitor for generic atorvastatin. It is clear that these contracts contain discounts that allow the profitable sale of Lipitor at reduced prices. The other terms of the contracts are unavailable to the public. Since it is unclear whether private and public insurers will be charged the discounted price or some other, higher price, the Federal Trade Commission has begun an investigation and Senator Herb Kohl, Chair of the US Senate Special Committee on Aging, has requested information on the contracts in letters cosigned by Senators Max Baucus and Charles Grassley.