Pfizer Expands Patient Assistance Program

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Pfizer announced yesterday that it would be expanding its patient assistance program to help more patients receive their drugs for free or at a reduced cost. They have done so by effectively broadening the income levels that make up the eligibility category.

Here is the official release:

In response to the ongoing challenges patients face in paying their out-of-pocket costs for their prescription medicines, Pfizer announced today that it will immediately double the allowable income level for its patient assistance program, so that even more patients in need could be eligible to receive their Pfizer medicines for free.

With this change, more than 40 medicines offered for free through the program will now be available to eligible patients earning up to 4 times the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) adjusted for family size ($47,080 for a single person; $97,000 for a family of four).

Through its Pfizer RxPathways program, Pfizer offers patients, including those with health insurance and those without, a range of individual services to help them gain access to Pfizer medicines. In the last five years alone (2010-2014), Pfizer has helped nearly 2.5 million uninsured and underinsured patients get access to more than 30 million Pfizer prescriptions, making it the most comprehensive program of its kind.

“We have listened to patients and acted quickly to significantly expand the eligibility of our patient assistance programs. While patient assistance is not a permanent solution, it is a necessary step for helping to solve some of the high co-pay issues that some patients face. The real solution is to have a system that provides patients with access to innovative new treatments their doctors’ prescribe and insurance plans with good coverage,” said Sally Susman, executive vice president, Corporate Affairs at Pfizer.

For cancer patients, Pfizer's cancer drug list includes Inlyta and Sutent, so this announcement is helpful especially to patients with kidney cancer (renal cell carcinoma). Specifically, Inlyta has FDA approval for the following indication:

  • Advanced renal cell carcinoma after failure of one prior systemic therapy.

Sutent meanwhile has FDA approval for the following indications:

  • Gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) after disease progression on or intolerance to imatinib mesylate.
  • Advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC)
  • Progressive, well-differentiated pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (pNET) in patiets with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic disease.ts with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic disease.

Source: Pfizer

 

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