LAT: Giveaway Program Improving Drug Industry's Tarnished Image

Giveaway Program Improving Drug Industry's Tarnished Image
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON -- A new drug industry clearinghouse has helped about a quarter of a million people obtain free or low cost prescriptions in the first 100 days since its inception, industry officials said today.

The improved giveaway program — and the upcoming unveiling of self-imposed limits on pharmaceutical advertising — are part of a campaign by the industry to repair its image and head off legislation allowing U.S. consumers to import low-cost prescriptions from other industrialized countries....

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Next week, the industry will announce a voluntary code of ethics for drug advertising that is directly aimed at consumers....(I)t will include a pledge to refrain from promoting a new drug to patients until doctors are educated about its benefits and risks.

With nearly half of all Americans taking at least one prescription, the cost of drugs has become a major budget issue for families, employers and government programs. In Congress, a coalition of Democrats and populist Republicans hopes to overcome Bush administration objections and pass legislation this fall that would allow drug imports.

The prescription aid program is the industry's first attempt to coordinate access to more than 180 assistance efforts administered by individual drug companies. In the past, doctors usually had to apply for free medicines for their patients....The new industry effort simplified the process, setting up a call center and a website through which patients can find the particular assistance program that covers their prescriptions, and apply directly for benefits.


(NOTE: The call center phone # is 1-888-477-2669; the Internet site is at www.pparx.org)


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-072605rx_lat,0,5652442.story?coll=la-home-nation

"Patients who do not have prescription drug coverage through an employer or government program and who earn less than twice the federal poverty level are eligible. The income limit is $19,000 for an individual or $31,000 for a family of three.

Some 600,000 people have contacted the program since it was established in April. Of those, about 300,000 have completed the paperwork and more than 240,000 are receiving medications, said H. Wesley Metheny, a vice president of the pharmaceutical industry group."