Cost of Tykerb and Xeloda

[Joan M]

Does anybody else have anything to add about these costs?

I'm heading to Albany, New York's state capitol, on March 15 for New York State Breast Cancer Education and Advocacy Day with several other women. I have 20-minute appointments with different legislators from the five boroughs of NYC to discuss two bills. One bill involves giving parity to oral and infused chemo drugs. Other states have similar legislation. For purposes of this legislation, oral chemo also includes endocrine drugs like Tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors. So any information on the cost of those drugs would also be useful. I asked about Tykerb and Xeloda because that affects all HER2+ metastatic survivors, and being metastatic I've been asked to present that case. But the issue also involves early stage patients, as there are an estimated 400 anti-cancer drugs in devlopment and 25% of them are planned as oral drugs.

While infused chemo is paid for by the medical portion of private insurance, oral chemo is covered by prescription plans and have hefty out-of-pocket expenses, and we need to change that.

Thanks.

Joan

[Sheila]

Joan
I used to pay a nominal fee for Tykerb and Xeloda, like 20.00 per month. We have to get all oral drugs through a mail order pharmacy like Caremark or Curascript....it recently changed to Curascript, which is a pain to get anything from. My Neupogen shots are now 30.00 for 5, and I have been fighting over the phone (and so has the Dr's office ) with Curascript, to get the prescription filled as today is the day I take them again. Dont know if they will arrive or not. I have no idea what Tykerb would cost from them, I just know ordinary drugs have tripled since last year.