Pfizer scales back its marketing campaign

“Pfizer would not do this if they did not have a strategy to make money,” says Dr. Santa Some estimates project that Pfizer will still be able to make a profit of about $100 from each 90-day supply of Lipitor, compared with the $225 it made before the market opened up to generics this week.

Dr. Santa says this is typical, with most drug makers like Pfize, eventually ceasing marketing a product after the generic versions are released. But as of Thursday, Lipitor was still airing TV ads.

As patent protection expired on Wednesday, two generics became available: one made by Ranbaxy Laboratories and the other by Watson Pharmaceuticals. But for the next six months, those generics won’t be significantly cheaper than Lipitor, if at all.

According to Bloomberg, Pfizer has struck deals with Catalyst Health Insurance Inc. and Coventry Health Care Inc. to prevent generic versions of Lipitor from getting into customers’ hands until next summer.

Any deals Pfize has made with health care companies will keep Lipitor at a much lower price for at least the next six months.

Besides a $4 co-pay offer by Pfizer for some insured patients, Lipitor will be a bit less expensive than generics for consumers who have United Healthcare; but for other insurance companies like WellPoint, Lipitor will still have a higher co-pay — $20 to $35 compared with $10 to $15 for the generic.

“We will be disappointed in the competitive market process that is supposed to ensue if in 18 to 24 months, you can’t get this drug at Costco for $4 a month,” says Pfizer. “If we’re not down to $4 a month then, the system has failed.”

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